Foreclosures as a percentage of all mortgages
The news is bad, foreclosure numbers came out again courtesy of RealtyTrac, but an interesting chart shows how many houses in America won't be affected because surprisingly, 32% of all homes owned in the United States don't even have a mortgage. It is interesting and it does make sense that the median price of all homes with a mortgage is higher than those without a mortgage.
Charts are courtesy of U.S. Census Bureau, American Fact Finders. Hat tip to Calculated Risk for pointing in the right direction. The first chart is Table B25096, Mortgage Status by Value and the second chart is B25097, Mortgage Status by Median Value.
You may also notice CR talking about foreclosures in a separate post about Southern California with a link to Matthew Padilla, the mortgage insider at the OC Register where foreclosures have doubled in the past year.
Don’t you just love the headlines. By the way, many of the “bubblelistas” are chiming in on both sites predicting the end of the world and possibly worse.
OK, so what do we have. Generally speaking, the consensus bad news is that there might be 2 million foreclosures before all this is done. While one foreclosure is bad and a lot is even worse, what does it really mean in the bigger picture.
2 million homes is only 4% of all mortgaged homes in America and 2.6% of all homes in the country. Looking at it from a more positive side, 96% all all homeowners with a mortgage will not be foreclosed upon. Incidentally, I agree with CR’s notion that taking equity out of homes should and will slow in the coming year and consumer spending will slow as well, additionally pressured by high gas prices. As to the likelihood of a recession, I’ll leave that one to the economists.
| United States |
| Estimate | Margin of Error |
Total: | 75,086,485 | +/-218,471 |
With a mortgage: | 51,234,170 | +/-153,174 |
Less than $50,000 | 2,242,784 | +/-23,231 |
$50,000 to $99,999 | 7,002,253 | +/-48,064 |
$100,000 to $149,999 | 8,245,296 | +/-49,068 |
$150,000 to $199,999 | 7,219,252 | +/-44,875 |
$200,000 to $299,999 | 8,898,887 | +/-41,910 |
$300,000 to $499,999 | 9,785,782 | +/-43,282 |
$500,000 or more | 7,839,916 | +/-38,531 |
Not mortgaged: | 23,852,315 | +/-87,013 |
Less than $50,000 | 3,840,853 | +/-30,480 |
$50,000 to $99,999 | 4,972,827 | +/-33,618 |
$100,000 to $149,999 | 3,773,919 | +/-28,801 |
$150,000 to $199,999 | 2,857,034 | +/-23,712 |
$200,000 to $299,999 | 3,025,977 | +/-23,331 |
$300,000 to $499,999 | 2,942,344 | +/-22,828 |
$500,000 or more | 2,439,361 | +/-17,432 |
| United States |
| Estimate | Margin of Error |
Median value -- |
|
|
Total: | 185,200 | +/-489 |
Median value for units with a mortgage | 208,000 | +/-379 |
Median value for units without a mortgage | 140,400 | +/-549 |