Why US Home Foreclosures in July 09 are 32% Higher than Last Year.

The month of July saw U.S. home foreclosures hit record high figures with 360,000 fillings, up 32% from the same time last year. One in every 335 homes received a foreclosure notice, a rise of 7% from June according to RealtyTrac.inc.

Despite ongoing government intervention at both federal and state level, the housing crisis continued to deepen as over 87,000 homes were repossessed, up from 79,000 in June taking it to the highest level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing data four years ago. Growing unemployment and falling property prices are also exacerbating the failures in home loans with default notices, auction and bank repossession on the rise across many states.

“July marks the third time in the last five months where we've seen a new record set for foreclosure activity" said RealtyTrac's chief executive, James J. Saccacio in a statement. "Despite continued efforts by the federal government and state governments will patch together a net of safety for troubled homeowners, we are seeing significant development in both the initial notices of default and in the bank repossessions."

Since April last year, home prices in 20 major US cities dropped 18% according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5% in June bringing the total number of unemployed Americans to 6.5 million, the highest figures since 1983.

Defaults by subprime mortgage borrowers with poor credit helped escalate the housing crisis which spread to prime borrowers as property prices fell. One in eight Americans are now behind on their mortgage payments or already facing foreclosure according to The Mortgage Bankers Association.

Nevada had the highest rate of foreclosures for the 31st month in a row with one in 13 households receiving a filling- more than six times the national average. California, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado and Oregon were the other states in the top ten for high foreclosure rates.