Cedar Rapids home foreclosures up 53 percent from 2009

The number of Cedar Rapids homes in foreclosure at the end of 2010 was up 53 percent from 2009.

RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., company that tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossession warnings, on Friday reported 961 Cedar Rapids homeowners received a foreclosure filing in 2010 or 0.86 percent of all houses in the city. The number of homes in foreclosure represents a 44.7 percent increase from the end of 2008.

In Des Moines and West Des Moines, 2,964 houses or 1.26 percent of all homes were in foreclosure on Dec. 31. The foreclosure figure represented a 12.2 percent increase from the end of 2009 and a 44.7 percent jump from Dec. 31, 2008.

RealtyTrac reported 1,725 homes in foreclosure in the Quad Cities (Davenport, Rock Island and Moline) on Dec. 31 or 1.04 percent of all houses. The number of homes in foreclosure represented a 0.98 percent decline from the end of 2009, but a 35.7 percent increase from Dec. 31, 2008.

Nationally, 2.9 million homes or 2,23 percent of all homes in the United States were in foreclosure at the end of last year, according to RealtyTrac, up 1.7 percent from Dec. 31, 2009, and 22.2 percent higher than at the end of 2008.

James Saccacio, RealtyTrac chief executive officer, said the foreclosure crisis is getting worse as high unemployment and lackluster job prospects force homeowners in an increasing number of metropolitan areas into dire financial straits.

Foreclosure floodwaters receded somewhat in 2010  in the nation's hardest-hit housing markets,” Saccacio said. “Even so, foreclosure levels remained five to 10 times higher than historic norms in most of those hard-hit markets, where deep faultlines of risk remain and could potentially trigger more waves of  foreclosure activity in 2011 and beyond.”

Las Vegas and Paradise, Nev., continued to post the nation's highest metropolitan area foreclosure rate, with one in every 9 housing units (10.88 percent) receiving a foreclosure filing in 2010 -  nearly five times the national average. A total of 88,198 Las Vegas-area  properties received a foreclosure filing in 2010, a decrease of 7 percent from  2009 but still up 31 percent from 2008.