US Housing Market: ten things you should know about foreclosures

Ten horrible facts about the terrible condition of the US housing market and the phenomenal rate of home foreclosures.

1. One in seven US homeowners with a mortgage is at least 30 days late on payments or is already in foreclosure.
2. In 2010, foreclosures accounted for a third of all homes sales.
3. Typically, a foreclosed home sold at 35 percent discount.
4. In 2010, almost 2.9 million U.S. properties received foreclosure notices. This was a a record high.
5. Around 1 in 45 homes nationwide received at least one foreclosure notice.
6. Five states accounted for more than half of all foreclosed properties in 2010: California, Florida, Arizona, Illinois, and Michigan.
7. Among the last 22 months, there were the only two months with fewer than 300,000 foreclosure filings.
8. Nevada had the highest foreclosure proceedings in the US for the fourth consecutive year with nearly 1-in-11 homes affected.
9. In 2010 one million homes were repossessed by banks; an increase of 14 percent from 2009.
10. There are 4.2 million homes on the market. Estimates suggest that there is a further shadow inventory of 2.1 million homes that are available for sale but not formally on the market. Taken together, it would take 23 months to work through supply at the current pace of sales.