Foreclosures Up--Hope Down--Deliberate Action or Indication of Recovery?

A report in late June revealed that the foreclosure rate has taken a serious jump, landing about 54 percent up from where it sat a year ago and more than 29% growth between April and May of this year.

Foreclosure notices in Illinois last month topped 16,318 in default notices, auction sales, bank repossessions, and other sale notices. Illinois, as well as the southwestern United States, including Nevada and Arizona are suffering as well with the top three repossession and foreclosures in the nation. The two top metro areas which are hit are Chicago and Los Angeles.

In May of this year there were more than 109K foreclosure listings, and this is twelve percent over what was national a month earlier. The AP says that if the last five years are any indication of what's happening, more than half of the houses in the United States are in foreclosure or will currently be foreclosed on. This number would seem to indicate that the Obama administration's claim that the housing market is in recovery or is slowly recovering may be premature, if not completely wrong. Major media, quick to dive to the defense of the Obama administration and claims of a housing crisis recovery may be left with a bit of egg on their faces if they continue to follow the Obama path.

The sudden increase in foreclosures and repossessions is said to be no accident, but the resultant wave of a policy which was deliberately pursued by the Obama administration on behalf of those who were well off financially. The AP notes "Foreclosure activity, as measured by the number of homes receiving foreclosure-related notices, slowed sharply last year as banks grappled with allegations that they had been processing foreclosures without verifying documents.”

Is this an indication that the houses will soon be on the market to be snapped up by a recovering economy, or is it an indication of things to come?