More bad news: Foreclosure activity up again

There’s been no shortage of bad news regarding the housing industry. If you’re looking for more, here’s a bit: foreclosures increased again last month.

RealtyTrac, an online provider of foreclosure information, reported that foreclosure activity rose once again in August. This time, activity rose by 12 percent. You can read the company’s press release about this here.

I know everyone’s waiting for the RealtyTrac release that proclaims that foreclosure activity is going down. Unfortunately, that release doesn’t look to be coming anytime soon.

According to RealtyTrac, one in every 416 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing during the month. That’s a lot of pain for a lot of people.

Nevada saw the highest percentage of foreclosure filings last month, according to RealtyTrac, with one in every 91 households receiving a notice during the month. California and Arizona rounded out the three states with the highest foreclosure rates.

There’s no longer any way that associations like the National Association of Realtors can claim that the housing and mortgage crises are being overblown by the media. The housing industry’s failures are behind everything from Leman Brothers’ failure to the federal bailout of AIG. It’s time for the real estate industry’s largest trade groups to admit that the housing industry’s problems aren’t being exaggerated by the media. They’re very real, and they’re not getting any better.