Massachusetts Near Top of New England Foreclosures

OK, we will never catch up to Nevada, the foreclosure capital of the world.

But Massachusetts has one of the highest levels of foreclosure activity of any state in the Northeast, with numbers close to those of considerably larger states like New York and Pennsylvania.

I took another look at the latest foreclosure numbers RealtyTrac sent over the other day.

Based on the percentage of households facing a trip to the auction block, Massachusetts is battling it out for second place with Connecticut, with New Jersey the regional leader.

Lenders hit nearly 23,000 homes and condos with foreclosure filings and actions in Massachusetts during the first half of the year. That’s a 24 percent jump from the first half of 2009.

That is considerably above the 13,315 foreclosure filings Connecticut saw during the first six months of the year, but adjusted for population, our gambling happy neighbor to the south actually has a slightly greater percentage of troubled properties, which account for .92 percent of the market in the Nutmeg State. The percentage of properties facing a trip the auction block in Massachusetts is a shade below Connecticut, or .84 percent of all properties.

In fact the total number of foreclosure filings in Massachusetts is very close to the numbers seen in New York and Pennsylvania, at more than 24,000 and 27,000 respectively.

Of course, our two fellow Northeastern states are also much larger. The Bay State, at 6.3 million strong, has less than a third of New York’s population and about half of Pennsylvania’s.

I have tended to be skeptical about what I have felt were overblown claims about the impact of foreclosures in Massachusetts, but even if we are not Nevada, which had more than 64,000 foreclosure filings and actions in the first half of the year, it’s still a problem here.

The Globe has an interesting piece on an uptick in foreclosure filings in the downtown Boston luxury condo market.

Good story, though the real action now is taking place in the suburbs, in old mill cities like Lawrence, and in some of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods.

OK, we will never catch up to Nevada, the foreclosure capital of the world.

But Massachusetts has one of the highest levels of foreclosure activity of any state in the Northeast, with numbers close to those of considerably larger states like New York and Pennsylvania.

I took another look at the latest foreclosure numbers RealtyTrac sent over the other day.

Based on the percentage of households facing a trip to the auction block, Massachusetts is battling it out for second place with Connecticut, with New Jersey the regional leader.Lenders hit nearly 23,000 homes and condos with foreclosure filings and actions in Massachusetts during the first half of the year. That’s a 24 percent jump from the first half of 2009.

That is considerably above the 13,315 foreclosure filings Connecticut saw during the first six months of the year, but adjusted for population, our gambling happy neighbor to the south actually has a slightly greater percentage of troubled properties, which account for .92 percent of the market in the Nutmeg State. The percentage of properties facing a trip the auction block in Massachusetts is a shade below Connecticut, or .84 percent of all properties.

In fact the total number of foreclosure filings in Massachusetts is very close to the numbers seen in New York and Pennsylvania, at more than 24,000 and 27,000 respectively.

Of course, our two fellow Northeastern states are also much larger. The Bay State, at 6.3 million strong, has less than a third of New York’s population and about half of Pennsylvania’s.

I have tended to be skeptical about what I have felt were overblown claims about the impact of foreclosures in Massachusetts, but even if we are not Nevada, which had more than 64,000 foreclosure filings and actions in the first half of the year, it’s still a problem here.

The Globe has an interesting piece on an uptick in foreclosure filings in the downtown Boston luxury condo market.

Good story, though the real action now is taking place in the suburbs, in old mill cities like Lawrence, and in some of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods.

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