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Home Repossessions are at record levels
It is likely to get alot worse before it gets better
The number of home repossessions happening in the UK is at record levels. Not since 1996 have there been such high personal mortgage debt. The repossession rate has jumped a massive 48% in the first half of 2008 relative to last year.
There is statistical evidence that lenders are repossessing homes much more quickly after default than in the previous housing crisis. They do this to get the debts off their books more rapidly having learned from their experience in the previous crisis when many of the secondary repayment arrangements fell through leaving the lenders in greater debt than if they had foreclosed earlier.
18,900 homeowners had the lenders repossess their homes, after having failed to keep up their mortgage payments.
Predictions are that the downturn will get worse, much worse, before getting better, and it is expected that many thousands more will have lenders repossessing their property.
Statistics show that of those lenders who had over 6 months unpaid mortgage arrears, over a quarter faced repossession. This compares with four years ago when only about a tenth of those that were that far behind would have lost their homes.
The Financial Services Authority is aware of this action and has called for some lenders to not be so quick to start repossessing, aimed mainly at some bad credit mortgage specialists and some latecoming buy to let investors.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders has also noted the bad news that there is a high number of people falling behind in their mortgages that have not yet had the repossession nightmare begin.
It's quite obviously going to get a whole load worse with personal debts levels as they are.
Mortages in arrears jumped by a massive 20% to over 155,000 cases of late repayments compared to the six months previously.
It is likely according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders that perhaps 45,000 homes will be repossessed over the year. This figure is just 0.16% of all mortgaged properties, so is perhaps not yet a general crisis, but this rate of repossessing is the highest in over a decade. In the housing crash of the early 1990's the rate was 0.36% of all mortgaged properties.
So what does this mean for my home being repossessed?
It means in a nutshell that you have to start being completely proactive about it. Learn the process of repossession. And be: Dedicated. Absorbed. Confident in what you're doing. Go get it. In the mood for reducing your debts and trying to stop the repossession.
Noone said it would be easy. That's why so many of us are being drowned in debt. But step out of that depression and realise that it's not just you and that you're going to have to do some pretty good fancy footwork to get out of debt and back on the straight and narrow.
First advice is to take advice but not spend all your time thinking about what to do.
There are some great resources on the net, including this one, that get you pointed in the right direction. Get yourself a list of things that you need to do and go do it like you would approach any other major livelihood critical project. (ok so you haven't really had any this bad before? None of us have!)
I have outlined the stages of house repossession on this site. Use this to plan and forestall what you can. Use the get out of debt tips to do your own further research. When I have the time I'll put up a forum here and we can all work it out all together in our different ways. but meantime, use the hints here to search more elsewhere and get a timed, actionable plan that you can work to out of it. And go do it!