About three months ago the Mortgage Bankers Association published their quarterly national delinquency survey which showed that a record 11.18% of mortgages were at least 30 days late.

Now, here we are 90 days later and we have a new record, 12.07% of mortgages were either at least one payment past due or were in foreclosure.

Already during the first quarter of this year, foreclosure actions have been started on 1.37% or approximately 616,000 homes.  And considering that major foreclosure moratoriums didn't expire until the end of March, you can see how these numbers are going to accelerate.

Rick Sharga, the senior vice president at RealtyTrac said in the past that, "We still anticipate that we'll see upward of 3 million households receive a foreclosure notice this year, up from 2.4 million last year."  This may be being optimistic based on rising unemployment.

MBA's chief economist, Jay Brinkman says, "Looking forward, it does not appear the level of mortgage defaults will begin to fall until after the employment situation begins to improve.  MBA's forecast, a view now shared by the Federal Reserve and others, is that the unemployment rate will not hit its peak until mid-2010.  Since changes in mortgage performance lag changes in the level of employment, it is unlikely we will see much of an improvement until after that."

What this information translates into is that we are indeed in the eye of the stormright now, the national housing market is not at or near a bottom.  And while all real estate is local, even the NAR has acknowledged that nearly 90% of major metros in the United States experienced year over year declines in home values.

With demand for real estate remaining anemic, and with a rising storm-surge of foreclosures, we can expect to see home values continue to deteriorate for the next two to three years at 8-12% per year.