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Floreclosures on the rise
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The foreclosure rate in the Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan statistical area is rising, according to a California-based mortgage tracking company.
The rate of foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans climbed to 0.9 percent in June, an increase of 0.3 percent compared to June 2007, First American CoreLogic reported.
Despite the increase, the Brownsville-Harlingen area remains below the national foreclosure rate of 1.6 percent.
The foreclosure rate alone, which includes all foreclosed properties, does not provide an entirely accurate picture, said Ernesto Aguilar, credit counselor for Brownsville Consumer Credit Counseling of South Texas.
"If you looked at just single family residences, the foreclosure rate would be much higher," Aguilar said.
A truer measure of the actual health of the housing market, Aguilar added, would be to monitor the growing number of foreclosure filings. Other key measures of the housing market include the total number of foreclosure filings and bankruptcy filings to prevent foreclosure.
And there has been an increasing number of both in recent months, Aguilar said.
"I'd say the bankruptcy filings are up by at least 25 percent," Aguilar said.
Although First American CoreLogic report doesn't include the number of foreclosure filings or bankruptcies, the group does provide another indicator - the mortgage delinquency rate - which shows that market conditions are worsening.
The mortgage delinquency has increased to 3.7 in June compared to 2.9 for the same period in 2007.
The rate measures the percentage of mortgage loans 90 days or more delinquent.
First American CoreLogic, a member of The First American Corp, provides residential data for the housing industry.
The Brownsville-Harlingen data was collected from the Cameron County Courthouse.
"If you look at the mortgages under stress, you can see that we're not very healthy financially in this community," Aguilar said.
June 2007 - 0.6 percent
June 2008 - 0.9
National rate - 1.6 percent
June 2007 - 2.9 percent
June 2008 - 3.7
Source: First American CoreLogic
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