The number of Louisiana homeowners being hit by foreclosure actions is on the rise, with the majority of those either losing their homes or facing a foreclosure sale, a national foreclosure tracking firm says. Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac says that during the second quarter, 5,626 properties were targeted by some foreclosure-related action. Such actions range from an initial default notice to outright repossession by a lender. That’s up 15.2% from the second quarter of 2010. Most of the latest notices represented the end of the line for delinquent homeowners. During the second quarter, 1,952 properties were repossessed, and repossession sales were scheduled for another 3,127. Louisiana ranked 26th in the RealtyTrac count among the states and the District of Columbia in foreclosure-related actions during the second quarter. During the first half of 2011, RealtyTrac says, 9,922 properties in Louisiana were targeted for some sort of foreclosure action, affecting one in every 198 housing units. That’s up 22% from the first half of 2010. Louisiana was ranked 30th for the first half of the year.
Nationally, there were 608,235 foreclosure filings during the second quarter, involving 203,876 repossessions and 231,998 final sale notices. That affected one in every 214 U.S. housing units and was down 32% from the second quarter of 2010. However, RealtyTrac chief executive James Saccacio says the decrease shouldn’t be interpreted as any sort of major relief for the downtrodden housing business. He pointed to recent upticks in the unemployment rate, weak consumer confidence numbers, and housing prices that continue to languish.
