Mortgage Confidential: Mortgage Resets Aren't to Blame

In a story released today by the Associated Press, RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure reporting firm, reported that year over year foreclosure rates jumped 57% when compared to March 2007. It seems foreclosures just won't stop and it's the fault of all those subprime and alternative mortgages that are resetting to higher rates and people simply can't afford them. Oh really? In another slant on the very same data, CNBC reported that yes, foreclosures are still up nationally, but they actually are FALLING in other states such as Texas, New Mexico, New Jersey, Hawaii and Delaware. This little tidbit, oddly enough, was stuck in the very last paragraph of the article. But wait a minute...if all these loans that are adjusting at higher rates are causing more and more people to be foreclosed upon then why are these other states immune from the very same problem? Hmmmmm?

Could it be that it's not the loan type that's been the problem? After all, subprime loans have been around for twenty years and so have their hybrid brethren so why has this foreclosure "crisis" being blamed upon subprime loans and the brokers that pushed them?