The Top Ten Cities for Foreclosures

With the housing market so bad all over which cities have the most foreclosures? Because of the amount of homes that were sold in certain areas in the early-to-mid-2000s these markets are really taking a fall.

Some of the hottest markets were in California and it now has the most cities with foreclosures. According to RealityTrac. the areas with the slower home price growth during this time period have not seen an increase in foreclosures.

"While foreclosure activity has skyrocketed over the past year in many cities, particularly in California, Ohio and the Northeast," James Saccaccio, RealtyTrac's chief executive, said in a statement, "foreclosure activity seems to be subsiding in parts of Texas, South Carolina and other states."

"Still," he said, "the overall trend is toward escalating foreclosure rates, with 82 of the top 100 metro areas reporting year-over-year increases in the number of homes affected by foreclosure."

Stockton California is the number one city for foreclosures. This city drew thousands of of buyers from the Bay-area as the price of homes there were too expensive. California gave a lot of loans using the adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) interest-only loans. These loans enabled home buyers to get into properties they could not otherwise afford. The problem with these loans are often the payments are low for the first few years and than the interest can be reset at a much higher rate which can greatly increase the mortgage payment. One in every 27 household had foreclosures in the first six months in Stockton. This is a 256 percent increase from the first six months in 2006. Detroit is number two in the nation with one in every 29 households recording foreclosures. This is almost double of what it was a year ago. A lot of these foreclosures in Detroit and the state are do to the loss of jobs because of the auto industry which has a ripple effect on the whole state. Las Vegas is third with one in every 31 households which is up 142 percent from the previous year. In California the other top cities are Riverside / San Bernardino with one in 33, which is up 198 percent, Sacramento with one in 36, which is up 231 percent and Bakersfield with one in 47, which is up 222 percent. Denver is number 6, Miami is number 7, Memphis is at number 9 and Cleveland in number 10. The city with the lowest foreclosures of the 100 metro cities surveyed by RealtyTrac is Richmond, Virgina which had one in every 2,319 households.