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Lenders report that it costs up to $50,000, or almost half the loan balance, each time they write off a foreclosure.
What to do if you get into trouble?
If your home is at risk of foreclosure, don’t wait, said Teri Duffy, executive director of the Housing Community Resource Center in Vancouver.
“Notify the bank as soon as you know your payment will be late,” said Duffy, who oversees the only local nonprofit that provides foreclosure counseling.
For immediate guidance, contact the Housing Community Resource Center at 360-690-4496.
By CAMI JONER and COURTNEY SHERWOOD, Columbian staff writers
Jennifer and Mathew Murphy are about to lose their Vancouver home. Lamont Shaindlin lost his in April. In an east Vancouver subdivision, one out of every nine houses has entered foreclosure since the start of the year.
The Clark County foreclosure rate has been rapidly climbing since mid-2007, largely overlooked because most reports examine the larger Portland-Vancouver area, which has not gone up as much.
In Clark County, 4.44 out of every 1,000 homes were in foreclosure in the first quarter of the year. In the Portland-Vancouver metro area it was three out of every 1,000, and 5.09 nationwide, according to RealtyTrac, a national real estate-tracking service.
Across the county, 1,049 houses were in foreclosure through April, up fourfold from 2007. The spike has been fueled in part by a tightening credit market and a weaker housing economy, but house-flipping speculators also played a big role.
Speculators own as many as one in five homes in some newer neighborhoods in the county, and now many are losing those properties.
Behind the numbers are tears and tough choices for hundreds of local homeowners who can no longer afford their loans, and big financial losses for those whose real estate investments helped fuel the situation.
Rising payments got the Murphys, Hazel Dell residents who say they did not understand the details of their adjustable rate mortgage, in trouble.

columbian.com