“Foreclosures have become more frequent here, but nothing like other places in the nation,” said Brian Monge, an agent with Jim Maloof Realtor.

The good news is that the problem hasn’t hit central Illinois as badly as it has other parts of the country.

But it’s still a problem that’s plaguing the American economy. More than 80,000 U.S. families lost their homes in April, according to Hope Now, an alliance of mortgage lenders, investors and community advocacy groups. That’s up from 72,000 who lost homes in March, the group stated.

Among the headlines: The nation’s foreclosure rate doubled in 2007; U.S. home values dropped by more than 7 percent last year as new-home sales hit a 25-year low.

The rash of foreclosures serves as a sobering reminder of the subprime loan crisis that’s been making so much economic noise.

The nation’s foreclosure problem is not equally distributed, said Paul Lueken, president of Lombard-based Illinois Association of Mortgage Professionals.

“Four states – Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California – experienced too much home appreciation while three others – Indiana, Ohio and Michigan – are suffering from recession. Those states skew the national foreclosure figures,” he said.

In the Peoria market, foreclosures have been on the rise but still represent a very small percentage of homes – just more than one-half of 1 percent, said Brad Horton, recorder of deeds for Peoria County.

A tightening housing market has aggravated the problem for those who face defaults on house payments, he said. “In the past, people would sell their home to get out from under a loan. But when you can’t sell your house, homeowners get in trouble,” said Lueken.

There were 501 foreclosures recorded in Peoria County in 2007, up from 436 in 2006 and 370 in 2005. So far this year, there have been 203 foreclosures in the county, compared with 172 over the same period last year, said Horton.

“We’ve seen a huge jump (in foreclosures) from March to May,” said Flemming, who works to help families in financial crisis. “We try to get people refinanced, to see if their loan is salvageable,” she said.

While Peoria hasn’t seen rampant foreclosures, some in the area have been hit. “We’ve seen foreclosure activity quadruple from last year,” said Shayla Flemming, senior housing counselor for Metec, a faith-based, not-for-profit organization at Mount Zion Baptist Church, 305 Madison Park Terrace.

The foreclosure problem is not confined to any specific part of the Peoria area, said Becky Peterson, president of the Peoria Area Association of Realtors. “They’re everywhere,” she said.

Sometimes foreclosed homes can sit idle for some time, said Peterson. “It’s a process,” she said, referring to the reselling of a home through a lending institution once the previous owners move out.

Peterson estimated it can take three to six months to move a home through foreclosure.

Slumping home values are being blamed in large part for the rising tide of foreclosures. Troubled borrowers are left owing more to the bank than their homes are worth. They can’t sell without taking a huge financial hit, so they just walk away.

Dumping more empty homes on an already glutted market also is likely to put a further drag on home prices – extending a vicious cycle.

Watching their home values sink, consumers have pulled back on spending, a factor in the economy’s slowdown.

California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona accounted for 89 percent of the total increase in new home foreclosures, said Jay Brinkmann, the association’s vice president of research and economics. Those are places where prices have fallen sharply and there was a lot of home building, creating too much supply, he said.

“The economy is treading water, and the housing market is one of the undercurrents trying to pull it down,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

Nearly 1 percent, or roughly 447,723 loans, fell into foreclosure during the January-to-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday in its quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market. That surpassed the previous high of 0.83 percent over the last three months in 2007.

The report also found that more homeowners slipped behind on their monthly payments. The delinquency rate jumped to 6.35 percent – or 2.87 million loans – compared with 5.82 percent for the previous three months. Payments are considered delinquent if they are 30 or more days past due.

With prices expected to keep dropping, foreclosures and late payments “are going to continue to go up,” Brinkmann said.

Both the rate of new foreclosures and late payments were the highest on record going back to 1979.

Homeowners with tarnished credit who have subprime adjustable-rate loans took the hardest hits. Foreclosures and late payments for these borrowers also swelled to all-time highs in the first quarter.

More problems also cropped up with loans to more creditworthy borrowers.

The percentage of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages that started the foreclosure process climbed to 6.35 percent. The rate was 5.29 percent in fourth quarter, the previous high. Late payments rose to 22.07 percent from 20.02 percent, the previous high.

The percentage of such loans falling into foreclosure was 0.54 percent, compared with 0.41 percent at the end of last year. Late payments rose to 3.71 percent from 3.24 percent.

The numbers were higher for those prime borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages. Initially low rates reset to much higher ones, making it difficult, if not impossible, for homeowners to keep up with monthly mortgage payments. The portion of those loans falling into foreclosure jumped to 1.55 percent from 1.06 percent. The delinquency rate rose to 6.78 percent, compared with 5.51 percent.

Although values are down in all categories, the variance between the resale prices of foreclosed and regular properties is dramatic. An analysis performed by DataQuick Information Systems at the request of The San Diego Union-Tribune showed that during the first three months of the year:

• Countywide, the median price paid for foreclosed houses and condominiums was $325,000 – 28.3 percent below the $453,000 median for nonforeclosure sales. That compares with a peak of $515,000 in the fourth quarter of 2005, when foreclosures were almost unheard of.
• Single-family houses in foreclosure sold for a median price of $365,000, compared with a median of $500,000 for nonforeclosures. The 2005 peak in that category was $565,000.
• Condos in distress sold for a median of $230,000, while the figure for nonforeclosures was $360,000. The median at the 2005 peak was $400,000.

Analysts say banks’ eagerness to get houses off their books even if they have to slash prices could continue to be a drag on the market for some time, with discount foreclosure sales putting downward pressure on prices in surrounding neighborhoods.

At the same time, optimists see reason for hope that overall price levels in the county will stabilize once the distressed properties are sold off, though that process could continue well into next year. Foreclosed properties made up 35.2 percent of all resales in January, February and March.

“Remember, all of this foreclosure pain we’ve seen so far has come amid an economic backdrop that, until recently, wasn’t that bad outside of real estate,” DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said.

Alan Nevin, chief economist for the California Building Industry Association and San Diego-based MarketPointe Realty Advisors, predicted foreclosure sales could account for as many as 15,000 out of 25,000 total sales this year. But at some point, the foreclosures will drop off, he Nevin said.

“Anybody who’s going to walk away from a house or condo has already done it,” Nevin said. “Now it’s just a matter of the pig going through the snake.”

He recommended that buyers and sellers pay attention to areas with unusually low sales counts where post-foreclosures sales dominate.

“The median price could pop back up once we see a more normal level of sales activity across all neighborhoods and home types,” LePage said.

Alan Gin, an economics professor at the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego, said the DataQuick figures reveal a direct relationship between foreclosures and the prices that homes command.

In areas with no foreclosure sales, the median house price dropped 5.3 percent on average in the past year, as measured by price per square foot, Gin said. But for every 10 percent increase in the percentage of transactions that were foreclosures, the median price per square foot dropped an additional 3.6 percent.

For example, in La Jolla, which had no foreclosure sales in the first quarter, the median price per square foot on 42 sales was $698, a figure 5.7 percent lower than a year ago. In National City, where nearly half of the 30 houses sold in the first three months of 2008 were foreclosures, the $268-per-square-foot price was down 32.7 percent over the past year.

“We’re sort of in uncharted territory here with the number of foreclosures being so high, particularly as a percentage of total sales,” Gin said. “And so it could be that we’ve got some distortion in the market at this point.”

In some cases, lenders will spruce up vacant, abandoned houses with a new coat of paint, carpeting and new appliances in order to command prices competitive with the overall market, said agent Rose Avedisian, a foreclosure specialist who has an inventory of 150 bank-owned properties she is trying to sell.

“The banks that choose not to have that philosophy and want to get the houses off their books are willing to sell them at below market value,” Avedisian said.

It’s no mystery why foreclosed properties generally sell for less than nonforeclosures, said Peter Dennehy, senior vice president of Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors in San Diego.

“In general, the banks are not like homeowners hoping to make a profit,” Dennehy said. “They have no interest in owning real estate, especially when they’re owning more and more of it. They’re the extreme form of a motivated seller.”

While foreclosed homes tend to be in worse condition than those that are privately owned, that’s not always the case, agent Linda Ring said. Ring has sold a number of houses in eastern Chula Vista, where many first-time buyers had stretched beyond their means to buy.

At the neighborhood level, the correlation between foreclosure levels and resale prices varied widely.

The typical foreclosure house in that area is two stories with three to four bedrooms and two to three baths on a 3,000-square-foot lot. Many have upgraded kitchens, Ring said.

“The banks don’t want to attract a fire sale, so they price them the same as the neighbor across the street,” she said. “But once it hits the 120-day mark, the price becomes pretty flexible.”

In the 91914 ZIP code of northeastern Chula Vista, where 79 percent of house sales were foreclosures, the distressed properties actually sold for 26 percent more than nonforeclosures. But in Spring Valley, where 58 percent of house sales were foreclosures, distressed homes sold for 20 percent less than regular homes.

Downtown San Diego, which attracted a flood of investors during the recent building boom, recorded particularly big price differences between foreclosure and nonforeclosure sales in the last quarter.

The median sales price of a bank-owned condo in the 92101 ZIP code was $385,000, compared with $625,000 on a nonforeclosure condo, according to DataQuick.

“It’s not surprising that when the market gets difficult that these units are in foreclosure,” said real estate broker Jim Abbott, owner of ARG Abbott Realty Group in downtown San Diego. “These are the less-desirable units.”

Agents there speculate that the condos taken back by lenders typically are smaller, were conversions and may not have the upscale finishes and amenities of the nonforeclosure units.

Even in the same downtown high-rise, though, a foreclosure condo can sell for a significant discount, said his son Dustin Abbott, also a real estate agent. Dustin Abbott said that in Acqua Vista, a Little Italy high-rise, a one-bedroom, one-bath condo in foreclosure recently sold for $200,000, compared with $275,000 for the same model a few months earlier, which wasn’t a distress sale.

The Sullivan Group’s Dennehy said that as the number of foreclosures mounts, prospects for a quick end to price discounting dim.

“The housing market will not stabilize until we get the inventory cleaned up, and with this level of units on the market, it’s not good,” he said. “It would be a lot more stable if we didn’t have the foreclosures, I can tell you that.”

The bank that owns a foreclosed home is looking to recover the value of the home’s unpaid mortgage, and quickly. That presents an opportunity to get a property below market value.

But there are investors looking to make money in the battered housing market by buying foreclosures — and they may be on to something.

“You can double your money if buy and hold for 10 years,” says Ralph Roberts, a Detroit-area broker and author of “Foreclosure Investing for Dummies.”

“Interest rates are low and prices are low. Now is a good time to buy,” Roberts says.

Roberts advises buying a property near your workplace or home. After looking at several, go with the best deal. “Don’t negotiate with the bank — make an offer and then go dark,” he says.

He says most foreclosure buyers get properties for between 75 and 90 percent of market value.

If you buy at auction, the full price is often required at the event, or soon after, so be prepared with the payment.

Buying foreclosures is not without risk. “Just because it’s in foreclosure doesn’t mean it’s a bargain,” Roberts says.

Also, regular maintenance likely wasn’t done, so there may be substantial costs beyond the purchase price.

Don’t buy in a market with too many foreclosed homes — no more than a few in any area.

And don’t trust late-night TV gurus — there are scams aplenty.

“Many are simply very good sales people who know how to push your buttons to extract a tremendous amount of money out of you,” says Alexis McGee of Foreclosures.com. She lists several well-known schemes on her Web site.

“Get a good agent, good lawyer, good inspector and do your homework,” Roberts says. Then start checking the foreclosure listings.

The two-county Inland region once again led Southern California in the rate of foreclosure-related filings, including notices of defaults, trustee sales and lender repossessions. Statewide, Riverside County ranked fourth among counties with a filing for every 92 households and San Bernardino County ranked fifth with a filing for every 108 households.

Daren Blomquist, spokesman for Irvine-based RealtyTrac, which on Monday released the March foreclosure data, said the firm had expected an even steeper increase in foreclosures because many mortgages with low introductory interest have been resetting to higher rates.

Riverside County’s foreclosure-related filings last month totaled 7,960, an increase of 30 percent from February and 127 percent from March 2007. San Bernardino County had 6,182 filings, up 25 percent from February and 118 percent from a year earlier.

“We are somewhat surprised there hasn’t been a bigger uptick in foreclosure activity,” Blomquist said.

One reason might be that programs aimed at stemming foreclosures — from increasing the availability of government-sponsored mortgages to lowering interest rates and promoting deals between lenders and strapped borrowers — are helping, he said.

Foreclosure activity is expected to peak later this year based on subprime mortgage resets, said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors.

She said although some homeowners may avert catastrophe with the assistance of various programs, the problem is much too large to disappear.

Another possibility is that the foreclosure workload is overwhelming lenders.

“I have heard anecdotally that some people who have not made (mortgage) payments for quite a few months have not had a notice of default yet,” Blomquist said.

On the positive side, she said in parts of the state, lenders burdened with foreclosed properties have lowered prices on repossessed homes to the point that they are attracting first-time buyers.

RealtyTrac reported that foreclosure filings on 64,711 homes were recorded in California in March, the most for any state for the 15th consecutive month. California’s foreclosure activity last month increased nearly 21 percent from February and almost 106 percent from a year earlier.

Pete Nyiri, owner of Top Producers Realty in Corona, a large marketer of bank-seized homes, said he has seen an increase in sales of homes priced below $300,000

For the fourth consecutive month California ranked second among states in the rate of foreclosure, trailing only Nevada.

One in every 204 California households received a foreclosure-related notice last month, which was 2.6 times the national average. In Nevada one in every 139 households received a foreclosure notice.

The agreement is a result of months of negotiations between the administration of Gov. Ted Strickland and subprime lenders, who had balked at an initial proposal Strickland offered last fall.

The agreement calls on lenders to make modifications to existing loan agreements when borrowers are unable to make payments. The lenders also agreed to make “good faith attempts” to contact defaulting borrowers as soon as possible.

The agreements are not legally binding. They expire June 30, 2009, a point at which leaders said they expect Ohio to have seen the worst of the foreclosure crisis.

Each company came to a separate agreement with the state based on its own business models and practices. Some made specific promises to contact borrowers a certain time before an adjustable rate mortgage was scheduled to reset to a higher rate, while others did not.

“While there may not be legally enforceable sanctions if these agreements are not lived up to, we believe it is quite significant that they would be willing to put their honor and prestige on the line like that,” Strickland said.

Strickland proposed an agreement in October that was based on recommendations made by a state task force on the mortgage crisis. Lenders did not sign the proposal, saying in some cases that it would have forced them to violate contract laws.

Ohio Department of Commerce Director Kim Zurz said the original compact called for across-the-board rate freezes, something lenders found unacceptable.

Citing a study by the Ohio Supreme Court, Strickland said there were 83,230 new foreclosure filings in 2007 _ a 5 percent increase from the previous year. He praised the Monday agreements as the first of their kind in the country. But the nonbinding nature of the agreements and the differences from company to company made it difficult for state officials to predict how the agreement would change the rate of foreclosures.

“We had tried to push the envelope about as far as we could” as a way to start negotiations,” Zurz said Monday.

During his February State of the State address, Strickland had harsh words for mortgage lenders and said the state would explore ways to increase regulations without the cooperation of the lenders.

Praise offered by Strickland and other leaders for mortgage companies Monday was in stark contrast to public statements they made before an agreement was reached.

“Instead of working with us, the subprime lenders stayed silent,” Strickland said on Feb. 6. “That is unacceptable. Quite frankly, they should be ashamed.”

Officials said three large subprime lenders doing business in Ohio had yet to enter an agreement.

The companies that signed the agreement Monday are: Carrington Mortgage Services, Citi, GMAC RESCAP/Homecomings Financial, HSBC Finance Corp., Ocwen Financial Corp., Option One Mortgage, Saxon Mortgage Services, Select Portfolio Serving and Litton Loan Servicing.

In the overall principles guiding the compacts, there is no set definition of what constitutes a “substantial” loan modification. And while the majority of the nine lenders said in their agreements how much notice they would give borrowers before a rate reset, some _ such as HSBC and Carrington _ do not have clear guidelines.

In his original compact proposal, Strickland asked companies to give six months’ notice before an adjustable rate mortgage was to reset.

He said reporting requirements _ in which companies would have to show how many loan modifications they offer, how many were accepted, and how many foreclosure proceedings were initiated _ were a large step forward because they did not exist before.

“We do believe this will work to meet our overarching goal, which is keeping more Ohioans in their homes,” said Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey.

Critics watching the Senate forge the plan, however, question whether the bill would help families facing foreclosure or the lenders facing financial losses on repossessions.

Late today, Dodd and Shelby announced that final language on the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, the proposed legislation, had been delayed until tomorrow.

But summary points released by Dodd and Shelby included $4 billion in Community Development Block Grant Funds to be used by communities hardest hit by foreclosures and delinquencies to purchase foreclosed homes at a discount and to rehabilitate or redevelop the homes to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the losses in house values of neighboring homes.

Jennifer Morris, McConnell’s press secretary, confirmed to WND today Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, held closed door meetings throughout the day finalizing the language of a bill to bring to the floor of the Senate.

Until language of the compromise bill is available, it remains unclear whether the $4 billion in grants would be available to prevent any families from losing their homes or would be available for community purchase only after foreclosed homes had been repossessed by lenders.

A position paper released by McConnell’s office called for state housing finance agencies to issue up to $10 billion in tax exempt bonds with the proceeds being used to refinance subprime mortgages.

Other key features sought by McConnell include providing $15,000 tax credits for the purchase of a home in or approaching foreclosure and extending the current three-month delay of any looming foreclosure for a returning GI deployed overseas to six months.

The compromise legislation also would provide $100 million in additional funding for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. to be used this year.

The compromise language released by Dodd and Shelby today suggested the bill would delay foreclosures on returning GIs deployed overseas to nine months.

Also proposed in the compromise legislation were reforms to the Federal Housing Administration program, extending various limits to qualify additional families for FHA loans.

Realty Trac reported foreclosure filings during 2007 were up 75 percent from 2006, with more than 1 percent of all U.S. households in some stage of foreclosure during the year.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported 2 percent of all home loans were in foreclosure, double the rate over the past 28 years and the highest foreclosure rate since the Mortgage Banking Association began collecting data in 1979.

“The package that we agreed to is not perfect, nor will it solve all the problems that the economy and the American homeowners are facing today,” said a joint statement released by Dodd and Shelby. “But it is an important step, and sends a strong message to the American people that Congress is willing to put aside our partisan differences and come together to tackle the challenges at hand.”

According to Realty Trac, the top 10 states reporting foreclosures in Dec. 2007 were, in order: Nevada, California, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts.

In one anecdote, the Denver Post told the story of a little girl who had written a note in a walk-in closet, “Dear Bedroom, I’m going to miss you. When I get older, I’ll buy you back.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported yesterday Ohio has launched a program where 1,100 lawyers from across the state have volunteered under a “Save the Dream” program to provide free legal assistance to Ohioans making under $54,000 a year who are in danger of losing their homes.

The Denver Post reported yesterday home foreclosure liquidators are offering dispossessed homeowners as much as $900 simply for agreeing to leave the property without stealing appliances or otherwise damaging or vandalizing the property in their anger and frustration.

The paper disclosed data compiled by the Ohio Supreme Court showed more than 83,000 foreclosures were filed during 2007, the most in the history of the Buckeye State, while Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati were all ranked among the top 50 cities in the country in foreclosed properties.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has posted a dynamic map of subprime mortgage conditions in the United States, displaying statewide, county specific and zip code variations the condition of securitized, owner-occupied subprime mortgage loans.

On Monday, the New York Times reported the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a record 28 million Americans will receive food stamp assistance in 2008.

The Times also reported one in eight Michigan residents, 12.5 percent, are now receiving food stamps.

At the current pace, the court will handle nearly 36,000 new foreclosure applications this year due to the subprime-mortage mess – up from just under 30,000 last year and about 20,000 two years ago, Scheier said.

Karyn Scheier, chief justice of the Land Court, acknowledged yesterday that a deluge of foreclosure applications has swamped the court. New cases are now coming in at a rate of 145 per day.

“Staffing levels are not up and we are struggling,” she said.

The result is buyers who purchase homes at foreclosure auctions and elsewhere can’t take title to properties quickly – and abandoned and shuttered homes remain neighborhood eyesores for months longer than many had hoped.

“It’s taking an inordinate amount of time,” said Blaise Berthiaume, a North Brookfield attorney and a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Property Law Section Council.

Real estate attorneys say the paper jam is adding an extra two to three months to an already frustratingly slow process of selling off foreclosed homes.

Attorneys say the entire process for foreclosing and then selling off homes can take at least six months.

Bob Holloway, a Peabody real estate attorney, said the Land Court is “just overwhelmed” by the caseload.

But Scheier said a new computer system has allowed the Land Court to dispense with “huge amounts” of those old cases over the past year or so.

Today’s problem is caused by market conditions, she said.

In late 2006, state Auditor Joseph DeNucci issued a stinging report about the Land Court, saying it faced a giant 66,289-case backlog.

On May 1, the court could get some relief when a new state moratorium takes effect, requiring a 90-day waiting period to file foreclosures after a homeowner defaults on mortgage payments.

But that delay will give the court only a temporary respite, if the market doesn’t fundamentally change, industry experts say.

“This is a solid, bipartisan start to keeping families facing foreclosure in their homes, helping other families avoid foreclosures in the future and helping communities already harmed by foreclosures to recover,” they said in a joint statement.

Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, members of the banking and housing committee, hammered out the plan in two days, after a first Democratic plan failed.

Four billion dollars has also been earmarked to help communities affected by foreclosures, by enabling the purchase and development of empty houses that otherwise could lead to falling house prices and rising crime in the area.

The proposals include a new tax credit for homeowners, demands for greater transparency in mortgage contracts, specific protection for military families facing foreclosure, counselling to help families avoid losing their homes, and a tax credit for buyers of homes in foreclosure.

“The package that we agreed to is not perfect, nor will it solve all of the problems that the economy and American homeowners are facing today,” said Democratic senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the banking committee.

Reid and McConnell said in outlining the plans that they hoped the bill would quickly move to the Senate for debate. It must then be considered by the US House of Representatives before going to the president.

It is the second time since the beginning of the year that Congress has intervened to try to cut short the mortgage crisis linked to troubles in the subprime sector, where loans are made to people with poor credit.

“But it is an important step, and sends a strong message to the American people that Congress is willing to put aside our partisan differences and come together to tackle the challenges at hand.”

In February, President George W. Bush approved an economic stimulus package which will see the Treasury mail checks to millions of Americans next month.

For the first quarter of 2008, foreclosures totaled 1,216, which eclipsed the number of foreclosures in all of 2001, Trustee’s Office records show.

Foreclosures totaled 488 in March, the third time since December that monthly foreclosures have set a record, according to a report today by the County Public Trustee’s Office. The previous record was 457 in February.

In addition, the number of deeds released in March was at one of its lowest monthly levels in the past three years. Releases are a positive sign; they signal a homeowner who has successfully paid off a mortgage, refinanced a home or sold a property.

“There’s not a lot of good news on housing,” said Tom Mowle, the new El Paso County Public Trustee.

There are a few things to keep in mind about foreclosures.

A foreclosure filing is the legal action by which a lender seeks to take back a home when an owner defaults on mortgage payments.

Colorado Springs and El Paso County, like other communities, have fallen victim to a foreclosure meltdown. Millions of homeowners nationwide, many of whom had risky credit histories, bought homes using non-traditional mortgages such as adjustable rate, interest-only and no documentation loans. As interest rates increased on adjustable loans, or because of financial woes caused by a job loss, illness or divorce, many homeowners were unable to make their mortgage payments and fell into foreclosure.

Not every filing results in the loss of a home, however. Sometimes, homeowners come up with money and catch up on their missed payments; other times, they work out a payment plan with a lender, who withdraws the foreclosure action.

Meanwhile, home construction wasn’t much better last month in the county.
In addition, El Paso County’s foreclosures are being spread out over a greater number of households because of the county’s growth. Even as foreclosures rise, the rate of foreclosure per household is much lower than 20 years ago.

Single-family building permits totaled 136 in March, down nearly 50 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department. For the first quarter, single-family permits totaled 359, down 43.5 percent from the same period in 2007.