Wayne Co. foreclosure rate leads the nation

Wayne County posted the highest rate of home foreclosures among major metro areas in the nation during January -- seven times more than the national average -- while Oakland and Macomb counties took huge hits, too.

It all combined to push Michigan to second place among the 50 states for new foreclosures, up 147 percent from a year ago.

Michigan saw 11,554 new foreclosure filings, according to RealtyTrac. That put one of every 366 Michigan households at risk of losing a home because of missed mortgage payments.

The Wayne County/Detroit area reported 6,653 new foreclosures in January, more than twice the number reported in December. That amounts to one new filing for every 124 households, according to RealtyTrac, an online market for foreclosure properties.

Meanwhile, Oakland saw a 338 percent increase from January 2006, with 1,324 foreclosures filed; Macomb posted a 108 percent increase, with 1,241 foreclosures.

Wayne County topped Greeley, Colo., which had claimed the top spot for the five previous months. The only state worse overall than Michigan was Nevada.

"Michigan is in a deep systematic recession. That always fuels the foreclosure rate," said Bill Martin, chief executive officer of the Michigan Association of Realtors. "It's not easy to say if we have bottomed out. I haven't seen a forecast that says when the situation will turn around."

Instead, the Realtors association is seeing more anecdotal evidence of mortgage fraud that preys on homeowners trying to lower or refinance their mortgage payments, Martin said.

Michigan's economy is essentially stagnant because of the woes of the auto industry, which has shed tens of thousands of jobs in the past few years, with more cuts to come.

Foreclosures continue to climb, with one new filing for every 866 U.S. households. The sheer number of foreclosures in the United States last month, 130,511, was the highest since RealtyTrac started recording them two years ago.

The climbing foreclosure rate in Michigan and the rest of the nation comes partly because many homeowners are grappling with higher monthly mortgage payments. When mortgage rates scraped bottom a few years ago, thousands of homeowners opted for adjustable-rate loans to buy homes at initially low rates. Others used the low intro-rate loans to refinance or to take out home equity loans.

Now rates on those loans are starting to climb. An estimated $500 billion to $800 billion of those loans will readjust in 2007, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Freddie Mac estimates that $494 billion will reset this year.

One of the few businesses benefiting from the soaring foreclosure rate is Property Maintenance Inc., whose job is to secure empty, foreclosed homes. The Redford business has doubled its workload each of the five years it's been in business, said owner Deanna Simmons. Her inspectors now visit up to 50 houses daily.

Three weeks ago, the company began offering a new service of inspecting houses where the owners are 30 days behind in their mortgage payments.

"We've visited about 1,400 of those types of houses," said Simmons. "We are in demand."

You can reach Louis Aguilar at (313) 222-2760 or laguilar@detnews.com">laguilar@detnews.com.