Five states, namely California, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Illinois accounted for half of the total foreclosures in the United States in August 2006. The national average for the last three months is one foreclosure for every 1,003 homes.

Adjustable Rate Mortgage Loans: Getting More Popular?

Did you know that 49.9 percent of buyers put less than 10 percent down payment? This is an increase of 44.8 percent since 2000. During the same six-year period, the share of Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) loans increased from about 20 percent to 30 percent. If you add the interest-only loans extended to millions of homebuyers, then you understand the reasons why there are record level of foreclosures now.

When will the tsunami of foreclosures hit?

This fall the adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that millions of Americans took out during the recent housing boom will be reset, and many homeowners will see their monthly mortgage payments shoot up by as much as 20%. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, of all mortgages financed in 2005, 36% were ARMs -- the highest ever.

Business Week reports: "For many Americans, this is scary news, if hardly unexpected. Everyone who took out an ARM or another equally appealing low-rate mortgage over the past few years to buy a house, at times beyond their means, knew that someday their payments could balloon. Those home buyers may have thought they would be able to flip their houses quickly and avoid the rise in their mortgage payments. But now, many of them are finding themselves stuck in a house they may soon no longer be able to afford, and, as the real estate market peters out, there's little they can do about it."

Desperate home sellers turning to auctions

Nationally, residential real estate auctions are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. auction business, according to the National Auctioneers Association. Last year, auctioneers sold $14.2 billion worth of homes in 2005, up 8.4 percent from a year earlier, the group reports. Full-year 2006 sales will show another strong increase.

"With the current state of the real estate market, sellers see the attractiveness of knowing they will sell it on a given day versus keeping it on the market for months and sometimes years and incurring costs such as taxes, insurance on the home, upkeep and marketing," said Erica Brown, a spokeswoman for the auctioneers' association as reported by The Online Ledger, The New York Times Syndicate.

Homeowners are shifting to high-cost loans

According to a recent report by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN... Homebuyers and homeowners often turn to "subprime" loans when their credit precludes them from getting a standard bank-rate loan. The number of such loans that come with adjustable rates has increased 20 percent to 30 percent over the past six years, according to the ACORN report.

Detroit was ranked No. 1 because nearly half the home loans obtained there last year were high-cost. Birmingham was ranked No. 10. At the other end of the spectrum was San Francisco, where only 7.5 percent of home loans were high-cost" as reported by Montgomery Advertiser.

Homebuilders are offering incentives on new homes

Three-quarters of the 369 homebuilders recently surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders said that they are now including once-expensive extras at no additional cost to help sell their homes. One-third reported that they are now also absorbing such costs as financing points on mortgages to help move unsold properties. Several even admitted to offering free vacations.

Rutherland Herald reports: Tom Stevens, president of the National Association of Realtors, says home builders started offering incentives in cooling markets such as certain parts of Florida, Las Vegas, California and the Northeast. "Home builders were among the first to react with various incentive programs and promotions to help keep their properties moving and to reduce unsold inventories," he says.

High-end kitchen cabinets and counters, upgraded bathrooms, generous hardwood flooring packages, finished basements and professional landscaping are just a few of the common gratis offers Stevens has heard of. "And good old-fashioned discounts and cash incentives ranging between $25,000 and $50,000 are out there, too."

This means that you need to shop around if you are planning to buy a new home and see the options offered by homebuilders.