Miami, PRNewswire - ForeclosureDeals.com has been closely following and analyzing foreclosure filing data around the nation.  For the first half of 2009, the company reports that foreclosure filings were just shy of two million. 

This number is a nine percent increase from the last six months of 2008 and a 15 percent increase from the first six months of 2008.

The data shows that cities in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona had the greatest number of documented foreclosure rates in the first half of 2009.  These states accounted for 25 of the 50 highest foreclosure rates among metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more.

More than 20 percent of the metro areas which showed above average levels of foreclosure activity were in states such as Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Illinois, and South California.  This data suggests that much of the new foreclosure activity may be more directly related to growing unemployment rates in those areas as opposed to subprime and adjustable rate loans coming to term.

However, not all the news is grim.  Some of the previously foreclosure-saturated metro areas in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and California actually posted declining foreclosure activity in the first six months of 2009. 

BBC NEWS

Seismic events that are going to change the political landscape

The financial crisis will be "more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s", UK schools minister Ed Balls has predicted.
Mr. Balls, a former economic adviser to Gordon Brown, said the global recession would be the most serious for "over 100 years", the Yorkshire Post reported.
He told a Labour conference that these were "seismic events that are going to change the political landscape".

ProPublica

Writing in ProPublica, Jeff Gerth reports that:
Two top watchdogs over the government's financial rescue programs told senators Thursday they would examine how two troubled banks, Citigroup [1] and Bank of America [2], were included in the first round of the bailout intended for "healthy banks."
The assurances from Gene Dodaro, the acting comptroller general, and Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program [3], came during a hearing at which senators from both parties expressed concern about how the banks qualified for billions in bailout funding.
Sen. Chris Dodd [4] (D-CT), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee [5], wanted to know why the selection process last October that resulted in the two banks receiving $40 billion in federal funds -- $25 billion for Citigroup and $15 billion for Bank of America -- was "completely shrouded."
Richard Shelby [6], the panel's ranking Republican, said it appeared that "the (Federal Reserve Board) and Treasury didn't know what they were doing" when they agreed to inject money into nine "healthy banks," because Bank of America and Citigroup were "on the brink of collapse" and another, Merrill Lynch, was being bought by BofA.
Citigroup and Bank of America started out as recipients of huge government investments through the Capital Purchase Program [7], designed for healthy banks. A few weeks later, Treasury and the Fed set up two new TARP programs for troubled firms, the Targeted Investment Program and the Asset Guarantee Program. The programs were first set up for Citigroup; Bank of America followed as the second recipient.
The three witnesses at the hearing, all involved in overseeing the TARP program, agreed with the concerns of the senators and announced new plans to review the process.
Dodaro, the acting comptroller general, said his agency, the Government Accountability Office [8], intends to "look at the decision-making process" for the Capital Purchase Program.
Barofsky, the special inspector general [9] for the TARP, said he was launching an audit of Bank of America's involvement in the TARP "precisely because" it wound up in the three different programs. Barofsky has also coordinated with the inspectors general of bank supervisory agencies to ensure that they audit the role of their organizations in reviewing applications for the CPP. (Under the CPP, banking organizations are supposed to first apply to their federal supervisors, who review the application to see if they qualify for the program.)
"Were similar banks all treated the same?" is an over-arching question the audits seek to answer, Barofsky told the panel.
Elizabeth Warren [10], the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel [11] for the TARP, which had previously issued reports questioning Citigroup's inclusion in the CPP, said that former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had been "not entirely candid" when he told the public that Treasury was injecting money into healthy banks.
Paulson's successor, Timothy Geithner [12], appears before the banking committee next week. He promised, as part of his confirmation, to answer questions about the criteria for selecting TARP recipients.

This article first appeared in ProPublica.org on 02.05.09

New York Times

The Times that banks are pulling the plug on successful home builders. "As [home mortgage loan] defaults and delinquencies rise, home builders, once prized banking customers, have become pariahs. Even builders who are up to date on their interest payments or still managing to sell houses are getting trampled."

Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said he categorically disagrees with suggestions that the Community Reinvestment Act is partly responsible for the ongoing credit crisis.
“CRA is not the culprit behind the subprime mortgage lending abuses, or the broader credit quality issues in the marketplace,” Mr. Dugan said in a speech to the Enterprise Annual Network Conference.
“Indeed, the lenders most prominently associated with subprime mortgage lending abuses and high rates of foreclosure are lenders not subject to CRA,” he added. “A recent study of 2006 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data showed that banks subject to CRA and their affiliates originated or purchased only six percent of the reported high cost loans made to lower-income borrowers within their CRA assessment areas.”
During the Presidential campaign, conservative supporters of Senator John McCain, of which Fox News' Neil Cavuto was a leader, were pushing the idea that the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were responsible for the subprime mess.

Reuters

New City Residence Investment Corp 8965.T said it filed for court protection from creditors with $1.1 billion in debt, the first Japanese real estate investment trust to fail as fallout from the credit crunch spreads.
A string of Japanese property developers and construction firms have failed in the past few months, hit by a tightening of credit to an industry struggling with high raw materials prices and weaker demand as the economy slows.