One in every eight American homeowners with a mortgage is late by at least one payment on their loan or is already in foreclosure, according to figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association on Thursday, The figures from the end of the first quarter show a record 12.07 percent of loans on one-to-four unit residents are one payment or more past due or in foreclosure. The delinquencies and foreclosures are being driven by the increasing rate of unemployment in the United States, which is now affected the number of foreclosures of prime fixed-rate mortgages. Defaults on these more stable loans now represent the largest share of new foreclosures for the first time since the economy began declining. “We clearly haven't hit the top yet in terms of delinquencies or the bottom of the housing market,” said Jay Brinkmann, the association's chief economist, in an interview with AP. “The housing market depends on the employment situation,” he said, “and we don't expect unemployment to bottom out until the middle of next year, so then normally housing would not recover until after employment recovers.” Foreclosure actions were started on record 1.37 percent of first mortgages in the quarter, the highest increase on record from the 1.08 percent increase last quarter. California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada accounted for nearly half of the new foreclosure activity in the quarter and half of the increase in prime fixed-rate foreclosure starts.
