Below The Beltway

Foreclosures were up 57% nationwide in January:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Foreclosure filings nationwide soared 57% in January over the same month last year - another indication that the nation’s housing woes are deepening.
A study released Tuesday by RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosure properties, showed that 233,001 homes were affected, 8% more than in December. […]

The latest numbers on existing home sales aren’t encouraging at all:
WASHINGTON — Sales of existing homes fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade in January while the median price for a home dropped for the fifth straight month.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of single-family homes and condominiums dropped by […]

Home values in Loudoun County, Virginia fell by more than $ 4 billion in 2007:
Washington DC (Map, News) - Loudoun County home values plummeted $4 billion last year, setting the stage for a difficult budget battle in one of the nation’s fastest-growing and wealthiest counties.
The average house lost 10 percent of its worth as the […]

I don’t often agree with Michelle Malkin, but she has a column out today about the politics of the mortgage mess that I agree with completely.
Money quote:
The true victims in this “crisis” are those who paid for homes within their means and those who waited to enter the housing market. A reader in New York […]

Two new reports out today demonstrate that we’ll be dealing with the fallout from the housing market collapse for some time to come.
First, home prices are continuing to fall:
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. home prices plunged by a record 8.4 percent in November, marking two years of slowing returns, according to a key index released […]

The numbers for foreclosures in 2007 are out, and the news isn’t good:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The number of foreclosures soared in 2007, with 405,000 households losing their home, according to a report released Tuesday.
Total foreclosure filings soared 97% in December alone compared with December of 2006, according to RealtyTrac, an online seller of foreclosure […]

It had it’s worst year on record since 1963:
The housing industry, caught in a maelstrom of sinking demand, rising foreclosures, and bulging inventories, is in its worst slump in decades, a growing body of economic evidence shows.
Sales of new homes fell last year by 26 percent, the steepest drop since records began in 1963, the […]

Loudoun County became the latest county in Northern Virginia to find out that it faces budget shortfalls thanks mostly to the declining real estate market:
Not that more evidence was needed, but the bad housing market continues to create havoc on local economies as Loudoun County officials said they are projecting a budget shortfall next year […]

Fairfax County reports that it faces a budget shortfall of nearly a quarter million dollars due primarily to declining real estate values:
A worsening housing market, including rising foreclosures, has rapidly pushed Fairfax County government into a budget crisis that probably will last several years, pinching spending by hundreds of millions of dollars on schools, public […]

Two stories in the local media demonstrate that the foreclosure story isn’t over in the Metro Washington, D.C.
First, the Washington Post reports that foreclosures are on the rise throughout the D.C. area:
The Washington region, once considered immune to the unfolding mortgage crisis, has experienced a surge of loans gone bad in recent months. It’s an […]