Although a number of years have passed since the onset of the so-called Great Recession, many Americans across the country continue to struggle in a number of areas.
One lingering – some might say seemingly intractable – concern is with the nation’s housing market, where individuals and families in many areas of the nation continue to experience adverse fallout. Mississippians are certainly not exempt from continuing challenges.
Recent housing-related numbers supplied by national real estate firm RealtyTrac bear out that regional dislocations continue to mark the housing industry and that a substantial amount of claw back is necessary before relevant statistics show a clear and lasting improvement.
Here’s one such number, pulled from RealtyTrac’s May 2015 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report: Foreclosure filings were up about 16 percent in May from the same period one year earlier, with May’s number spelling a 19-month high.
That might reasonably seem to spell reversion rather than progress in the housing market to many readers, with that view being buttressed further still by this piece of information: Bank repossessions nationally jumped sharply upward in May from one year earlier – in fact, by a whopping 58 percent.
Some commentators contend that the spike in bank activity is actually a positive development, with financial institutions finally stepping in with purpose to clean out the most problematic inventory.
That may be true, but it doesn’t dampen the concerns that many people continue to harbor regarding the housing market’s health.
Those concerns seem well warranted, given news that a clear majority of the country’s 20 largest metro areas posted higher foreclosure rates last month than was the case in May 2014.
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