1 Like
As much of a “panic” that occurred in 2008?
Fears as banks seize 40,000 homes in a single month as foreclosure tsunami sweeps America
The number of Americans losing their homes to banks has risen for the twelfth consecutive month, highlighting mounting pressure in the US housing market.
In February, foreclosure activity reached 38,840 properties - a 20 percent increase compared with the same month last year.
2 Likes
US Credit card debt hits record $1.28 trillion.
Total credit card balances in Canada have officially reached a record high of $124.7 billion.
Something’s got to give.
The spike in foreclosures isn’t caused by one dramatic event — it’s the result of several slow‑building pressures stacking on top of each other. The data shows twelve straight months of year‑over‑year increases in foreclosure activity, which tells us this is a trend, not a fluke. Rising interest rates and rising taxes are squeezing monthly budgets, while household debt — credit cards, auto loans, etc. — is eating up the rest. Lenders have also increased foreclosure starts by 14% and completed repossessions by 35%, so the pipeline is moving faster. Once more distressed properties hit the market, surrounding home values drop, which erodes equity and removes the safety net for people who** are paying on time. It’s a feedback loop. This isn’t 2008, but it is **a sign of mounting financial stress across the system.
5 Likes
Thanks to absurd COVID policies. We may never recover from America’s and the world’s ridiculous response and China’s cover-up.
4 Likes
Short of a complete and catastrophic change in a persons financial status (the vast majority of foreclosure owners do not qualify for this description) the causes are the owner having little financial sense and extremely overextending their financial abilities. So many just do not understand how to manage finances and credit.
Financial responsibility matters, but it’s not the whole story. The foreclosure spike is happening even to people who** are **paying on time because rising rates, taxes, and debt loads are squeezing budgets across the board. Blaming homeowners alone ignores the systemic pressures that have been building for over a year.
3 Likes
Agreed. Rising foreclosures do not point to financial illiteracy as they did in 2008, when they would loan money to anything with a pulse.
2 Likes
You can be responsible, pay on time, and still get crushed when your mortgage resets from 3% to 7%, your property taxes jump, and your groceries cost 20% more than three years ago.
That’s not “bad budgeting.” That’s arithmetic.
4 Likes
You are proving my point EXACTLY! These foreclosures are poor financial management. I will use an actual case of how to prevent this and it is from real world experience.
When the Wife and I bought our first home we were both working average paying jobs. Even though the RE Salesperson was trying to use both pays to calculate “How much house we can afford” and pushing the envelope we did not allow that. She was actually pushing WAY MORE house (at least price wise) than we needed. Instead my Wife and I Used only one paycheck to determine how much house we could afford and also pay most of the recurring and necessary bills. The house we bought was very nice and met every need both immediately and into the future. BTW we had also been saving to be able to afford a 20% down to avoid PMI and the other less desirable aspects.
A few years later the Wife did lose her job through a company closing. It took her a bit to find another comparable job. Alas we had no fears since we did not overextend ourselves on the house we did buy. Also we have always been prudent with the use of credit and saving so during her job search we really felt no detrimental effects except using some of our savings to cover what her original pay covered in the “most of the recurring and necessary bills” described above.
So yes the vast majority of these foreclosures are caused by poor planning and irresponsible financial management! We have been seeing costs of living rising over decades and always look at the future when performing financial planning. To many people take on to much debt just to “live a good life” with no thought of how the future can change and how it will affect them.
2 Likes
These opinions are all very interesting. I recall a couple of years back, a member here blaming those suffering economic hardship from inflation due to Biden’s policies as weak-minded people who just didn’t know how to manage their lives.
There is a degree of truth to that. We live in a capitalist society, and there will be winners and losers.
Losers deserve it. Try harder. Spikes in failure never illustrate bad policy, only bad decisions. heavy sarcasm
1 Like
Being “responsible” doesn’t mean just “paying on time” and that fallacy is what gets people into trouble! Being responsible means proper planning and management of your finances no matter how little or how much you have. So to your examples I have responses.
Mortgage rates do not reset unless you were stupid and bought into one of those mortgages that are based on the future always being rosy and only getting rosier. Nobody can tell the future and doing one of those type mortgages is a prime example of overextending yourself by “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”. That attitude rarely works out.
Property taxes always rise and that is part of planning whether you can afford that house or not in the future. Property tax increases are not a short term problem unless you FU and overextended yourself there as well! As taxes rise so do other costs and if people are being “responsible” they would be aware and plan for that even if it means selling that house to get something more affordable. That’s part of living. Also property taxes rarely ever take such a giant hike all at once unless you live in an area that the local government assessing the taxes is totally FU in their financial management. Part of buying that house is to at least do some modicum of research regarding that very subject. We did that when we bought our first house and every other after that.
Groceries are things you eat and you just don’t need to eat steak every day! Groceries are one of the easiest budget items to do. So if rising grocery costs are crushing a person to the point they are going to lose their house maybe they should try a little peanut butter and jelly more often?
I am going to provide an anecdote involving something my Father said to me long, long ago and it is just as relevant now as it was then and I never forgot it (in a good sense and way). I’ve got 10 Brothers and Sisters. We were given everything we “needed” not wanted. My Mother kept our clothes clean, dry, and serviceable at all times. When I was about 12 years old I asked my Father if he could buy me a new pair of blue jeans. He asked “How many pair do you have?”. I told him I have four pair. His answer to my question with his next question summarizes the problems we see today. He then asked “Well now how many pair can you wear at one time?”.
His point is the crux of the vast majority of these foreclosures. I did not “need” another pair of blue jeans but I “wanted” another pair of blue jeans. What we see with the vast majority of foreclosures are people losing more home than they could afford and more home than they “needed”. They failed to plan for the future and learned how bad life can suck when you don’t plan!
1 Like
Your experience is valid, but an individual anecdote doesn’t explain a nationwide spike. Planning ahead helps, but the current foreclosure rise is happening even to households that** did **plan — because the math changed faster than incomes. That’s why systemic factors matter here.
2 Likes
Manny, your personal approach worked for your situation, and that’s great, it also worked for mine — but individual anecdotes can’t explain nationwide foreclosure spikes. The current rise is affecting households that** did **plan, saved, and bought responsibly. Systemic pressures don’t disappear just because some people were able to avoid them.
Financial discipline matters, but it doesn’t override interest rate math, tax policy, or market shifts — and those are the drivers behind the trend we’re discussing.
It depends where you live. I’m in a red state and my real estate taxes stayed frozen for five years. After that, they were only allowed to increase by 15% and they stay frozen for another five years. Red state stuff thank you.
Now let’s move to the blue state stuff
In New York City, property taxes are back in the headlines. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has floated the idea of raising them—by 9.5%—as part of this year’s budget. Mamdani says it’s a last resort, claiming that if Albany won’t raise taxes on millionaires, the city may have to raise them on property instead.
February 23, 2026
- South Carolina
The 23rd most populous state had the fourth-highest foreclosure rate in January with one in every 2,351 homes going into foreclosure. Of the Palmetto State’s 2,443,039 housing units, 1,039 were foreclosed on in January. The counties with the most foreclosures per housing unit were (from highest to lowest): Kershaw, Chester, and Richland.
3 Likes
Many people have no idea what you are saying or what you mean, Manny.
It is poor planning.
It happens over and over and over again…
Things will cost more in 10 years or even 2 or 3 years than they do now.
If you signed up for a variable interest mortgage, it will cost more when rates go up.
Good budgeting and planning takes this into account.
Schools would do well teaching this as a valuable skill.
1 Like
Roughly half (49%) of U.S. residents struggle to afford their regular rent or mortgage payments. This is up from 44% last year at this time.
Continued rising inflation is making mortgages significantly harder to afford by driving up the cost of ongoing expenses for existing homeowners. This includes insurance premiums that are expected to go up about 10% annually due to the rising replacement and construction costs: increased maintenance costs and HOA fees; and increased property taxes due to increased property values.
1 Like
I had one of those when I built my house in 1972. The rate then was 7-14% Luckily, it stayed at 7% until 1982 where I refinanced for 5%. Actually, it was not a house, it was a duplex. I built that for $20,000 and had one side paying half my mortgage. I sold it for $62,000 in 87 when I moved to central Maine.
Variable rates are fine if you happen to hit a stable market.