Ilyce Glink's Blog

Welcome to Ilyce Glink's blog! Here you'll find Ilyce's latest insights on personal finance advice, real estate advice and consumer issues. Come back often for timely and interesting posts on a wide variety of topics.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Today on the Clark Howard Show, September 5, 2008

Today on the Clark Howard Show we discussed the following:

* Delinquency and Foreclosure Rate Increase in Latest MBA Survey. The delinquency rate, which includes all loans that are at least one payment behind but doesn't include loans that are in the process of foreclosure, now stands at 6.41 percent, up 1.29 percent from a year ago. The survey reported that 2.75 percent of loans were in foreclosure an increase of 1.35 percent from a year ago.

These are the highest rates recorded since the survey started.

"The national foreclosure numbers continue to be driven by the hardest hit states continuing to get much worse. The increases in foreclosures in California and Florida overwhelmed improvements in states like Texas, Massachusetts, and Maryland," said Jay Brinkmann, MBA's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Research and Economics.

* The unemployment rate rose unexpectedly to 6.1 percent, a high for this cycle. The job loss was a worse-than-expected 84,000. Some economists think we're now certainly heading into a recession and expect to see job losses of 100,000 or more this fall. In any case, job losses will take some of the edge off of inflation -- at least for the moment. And, at least gas prices are falling.

Labels: Clark Howard, Economy, Foreclosure, unemployment, WSB