Foreclosure Fetcher Blog

Here are some highlights from the below article on the Connecticut foreclosure market appearing in www.nytimes.com on March 18, 2007.

1. A slow housing market and continued growth of risky mortgage products is leading to increasingly  high foreclosure rates in Connecticut.
2. 1,451 February foreclosure filing in Connecticut; 61% higher than last year.
3. Connecticut was 17^th in the nation for foreclosure rates in 2006; one foreclosure filing for every 118 households

Foreclosure flippers and homebuyers in Connecticut be sure to read this article, and then check out the Foreclosure Fetcher Connecticut Market page at http://foreclosurefetcher.com/connecticut.html.

March 18, 2007
In the Region | Connecticut

A Surge In Foreclosure Filings

By LISA PREVOST
AFTER 20 years as a lawyer, David Volman has handled enough divorces to know that many marriages collapse under financial strain. So when his practice, in Shelton, began receiving an unusually large number of divorce cases last summer, Mr. Volman took it as an omen. “Divorces go hand in hand with foreclosures and bankruptcies,” he said.
Sure enough, in the first two months of this year, Mr. Volman took on some 50 bankruptcy cases, an “enormous amount,” he said, given that in all of 2006 he handled 19.
Many of the cases involve working-class couples in the Lower Naugatuck Valley who can no longer afford their mortgages. “People are walking into my office and saying: ‘Here are the keys. Do whatever you have to do. I just want to get out of this so I can sleep at night,’ ” he said.
A slower housing market and the proliferation of risky mortgage products continue to drive up foreclosure rates across Connecticut. Preliminary figures for February gathered by RealtyTrac Inc., a national online marketplace for foreclosure properties, show a total of 1,451 foreclosure filings in Connecticut, a 61 percent increase over the corresponding period last year.

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