The foreclosure rates on homes in the US is still rising sharply, which is bad news for banks and almost anyone trying to sell a house. It could also totally undermine the Administration’s plan to help homeowners cut mortgage costs and stay in their homes. The assistance will come too late for hundreds of thousands of people and the plan to use government money to stabilize housing prices will have largely failed.

According to Bloomberg, a total of 803,489 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized, 24 percent more than a year earlier in the first quarter.

If it is another quarter or more before the government plan actually works its way down to troubled mortgage holders, the housing market may have to fall enough to find a bottom of its own.

Douglas A. McIntrye