Home Foreclosures Double on Loan Rates Location: New York Author: RiskCenter Staff Date: Monday, October 15, 2007 U.S. home foreclosures doubled in September from a year earlier as subprime borrowers struggled to make payments on adjustable-rate mortgages, according to RealtyTrac Inc. There were 223,538 foreclosure filings last month, including default and auction notices and bank repossessions, an eight percent decline from August. California had the most with 51,259 and Florida was second with 33,354. The national foreclosure rate was one for every 557 households, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said. Foreclosures are deepening the U.S. housing recession by pushing more homes onto a market where sales and prices are dropping. There's a 10-month supply of unsold homes, the highest in at least eight years. As many as half of the 450,000 subprime borrowers whose mortgages will re-set through November may lose their homes because they can't afford the higher payments, according to a report by Credit Suisse Group. Prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell 3.9 percent in the 12 months through July, the most on record, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index. Adjustable-rate mortgages to subprime borrowers, people with limited or weak credit histories, accounted for 7.3 percent of all home loans and 44 percent of all new foreclosures, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington. Source: www.creditandcollectionsworld.com