Good, bad news on area housing

BROWNSVILLE -Foreclosure rates in the Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan statistical area are on the rise, according to a California-based mortgage tracking company.

Despite the increase, the Brownsville-Harlingen area remains below the national foreclosure rate of 1.6 percent.

The foreclosure rate alone, which includes all foreclosed properties, does not provide an entirely accurate picture, said Ernesto Aguilar, credit counselor for Brownsville Consumer Credit Counseling of South Texas.

"If you looked at just single-family residences, the foreclosure rate would be much higher," Aguilar said.

A truer measure of the actual health of the housing market, Aguilar said, would be to monitor the growing number of foreclosure filings.

Other key measures of the housing market include the total number of foreclosure filings and bankruptcy filings to prevent foreclosure.

And there has been an increasing number of both in recent months, according to Aguilar.

"I'd say the bankruptcy filings are up by at least 25 percent," Aguilar said.

While the First American CoreLogic report doesn't include the number of foreclosure filings or bankruptcies, it does provide another indicator that market conditions are worsening: the mortgage delinquency rate.

Mortgage delinquency increased to 3.7 percent in June compared to 2.9 for the same period in 2007.

The rate measures the percentage of mortgage loans that are delinquent by 90 days or more.

First American CoreLogic, a member of The First American Corp, provides residential data for the housing industry.

The Brownsville-Harlingen data was collected from the Cameron County courthouse.

"If you look at the mortgages under stress, you can see that we're not very healthy financially in this community," Aguilar said.

BY THE NUMBERS
* Foreclosure rate for Brownsville-Harlingen
June 2007: 0.6 percent
June 2008: 0.9 percent
National rate: 1.6 percent
H Mortgage delinquency rate for Brownsville-Harlingen
June 2007: 2.9 percent
June 2008: 3.7 percent
Source: First American CoreLogic