CRL: Foreclosure Starts Hit One Million So Far This Year

The Center for Responsible Lending brought our attention to a “dismal milestone” over the weekend:  one million foreclosures have already been started in 2009.

Above, see an example of ads made by MoveOn.org after the Senate rejected a measure which could have prevented 1.7 million foreclosures by lifting the ban on judicial loan modifications.  You can see if your Senators joined Sen. Nelson from Nebraska in voting against this common sense provision.

Here’s more from the CRL news release:

CRL projects 2.4 million foreclosure starts in 2009, with these foreclosures reducing the property values of some 70 million nearby households a total of $502 billion — about $7,200 per family. Through 2012, those numbers will rise to at least 9 million foreclosures that will cost 92 million neighboring families $1.9 trillion in lost home value.

As we await the results of the next wave of mortgage modifications, a new foreclosure starts every 13 seconds — nearly 6,500 a day. We call on lenders and loan servicers to work with homeowners in good faith to dramatically increase loan modifications that actually stop foreclosures and keep people in their homes.