Foreclosures Still Plague Minnesota

Foreclosures Still Plague Minnesota In 2010, the number of notices that would eventually lead to foreclosure received by homeowners increased 8 percent over the year before, according to a report from the Minnesota Home Ownership Center, which compiled notices received by the state’s Homeownership Advisors Network. Overall, there were 71,665 of these notices sent to state residents, up from the 66,570 mailed in 2009. However, the rate of increase has slowed from the previous period.

“While we are seeing signs that the housing market may be stabilizing, these numbers show that Minnesota is not out of the woods yet and that tens of thousands of Minnesota families are still facing their own personal foreclosure crisis,” said Ed Nelson, marketing and communications manager for the Minnesota Home Ownership Center.

The state’s busiest period for notices was the third quarter, which had nearly 2,000 more notices than the following quarter, the report said. Between July and September, there were 18,982 notices mailed, compared with 17,270 from October to December.

Many consumers may have received improper foreclosure notifications, however, due to the robosigning practices used by many lenders in recent months. With this process, unqualified bank employees approved hundreds of actions per day without properly verifying their legitimacy.