Picture by Stephen Scott $1.148m home in South Carolina.
As CNBC reports foreclosure on homes with heated pools, ocean views and other high end features and who are worth over a million dollars or in some cases multi millions have been increasing over the past year just as the more modestly value homes are slowing in their foreclosure rates.
RealtyTrac reports that in February of homes worth over a million there were 4169 of them that were somewhere in the Foreclosure process a 121% increase from the prior year.
Nationwide of the single family homes selling for over a million dollars between January to April 37 of 295 of them were either in foreclosure or sold as part of a short sale while just 10 of 231 the prior year were in a similar situation.
Also the number of properties who are significantly late in paying their mortgages as defined by 90 days or greater behind 13.3% is among the properties that are over a million dollar loans while the overall rate is at just 8.6% in the U.S.
The article discusses how some areas such as Florida have properties which rarely have foreclosures but now have properties worth multi millions now being impacted by that.
The explanation for the delay in the higher end homes is that the owners had more cash and were not impacted as quickly as the more modestly valued homes but they are feeling the impact of the bad economy and real estate dropping significantly in value. Although the data mentioned in the article was not broken down geographically Florida is one of the worst hit states as far as the value of real estate dropping and foreclosures having occurred partly to correct for the skyrocketing values that lead to the bubble bursting.