Donny Allen, president of the 2008 Ozark Gateway Association of Realtors board and a Keller Williams real-estate agent in Joplin, said the local numbers are nowhere close to the national rates but are definitely on the rise. At any given time, he said, his office has 20 to 30 repossessions going.

State and national

The local numbers are a reflection of a greater bust affecting the rest of the state and the nation. RealtyTrac.com, a leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, released its latest numbers for August, reporting the highest number of foreclosures since it began issuing the report in January 2005.

There were 243,947 foreclosure filings nationally in August, a 36 percent increase from the figure for the previous month. That is one foreclosure for every 510 households nationally. The filings include default notices, auction-sale notices and bank repossessions.

In Missouri, 3,079 foreclosures were filed in August, one for every 842 households. That is more than a 50 percent jump from July’s total and more than a 130 percent increase from the figure for year before.

Nevada, Florida and California were the states with the most filings in August. They were followed closely by Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Indiana. Officials at RealtyTrac say the increased number of filings is connected to the large number of subprime, adjustable-rate loans starting to reset.

The August report was the latest in a yearlong series of bad news for homeowners. For the first six months of 2007, RealtyTrac reported that more than 500,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, up more than 30 percent from the total for the previous six months, and up more than 55 percent from the figure for the first six months of 2006. Over the first six months of 2007, Missouri had one foreclosure for every 184 households.

‘Creative financing’

Local attorneys, credit counselors and Realtors tend to agree with the national assessment that much of the recent housing fallout is the result of adjustable-rate mortgages and some predatory, or at least unwise, lending practices.

Franklin and her paralegal, Sandy Blackford, said the most common factors they see locally for foreclosures are people with budgets stretched too tight who cannot make their monthly payments when their adjustable rates go up or when they have an unexpected life change.

“These people are stretched so tight just to pay (their house payment) in the first place,” Franklin said. “When the rates go up, they just can’t do it anymore. You wonder how these people even got the loans in the first place. We saw one case recently where the lender had to break the money up into two different loans just to make the people qualify for it.”

Franklin thinks that in some of these cases, the lenders should take some responsibility for the situation they helped create by making a way for people to get in over their heads. She said she believes in personal responsibility, but that consumers should have all the information they need to make the best decisions for their families.

Allen blamed “creative financing” for much of the rise in foreclosures he has seen in the past three to four years. He said unexpected life changes have always resulted in some foreclosures, but adjustable rates and subprime loans are causing the current spike in repossession numbers.

“These different kinds of loans start off in your favor, but they get out of hand quickly,” he said.

The story is the same through August’s eyes. He said some home buyers with no down payment and questionable credit get loans for more than the value of the house, and with the slowing appreciation rate, people cannot sell their homes for what they still owe even two to three years after buying them.