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Repeat foreclosures, or loans that have gone through the foreclosure process more than once, are one of the lingering drags on the housing market emanating from the crash.
Using data from Black Knight, MarketWatch plots the trajectory of repeat foreclosures from 1999 to 2017, the pattern mimicking the housing bubble, subsequent crash and recovery. Daren Blomquist, a vice president at Attom Data Solutions, tells MarketWatch that for homeowners who could not avoid foreclosure during the last downturn, the cost of trying to save the loans is broader than just the direct financial loss. Blomquist compares different states' methods of dealing with foreclosures, "[some]rip the Band-aid off and let the bad loans go bad and be resolved more quickly,” while others require lengthy court processes to offer more protections to homeowners. That approach, “seems laudable, but one with unintended consequences of maybe draining resources..."
In 2006, Malcolm Gladwell published a story called “Million Dollar Murray.” It profiled Murray Barr, an affable, mostly-toothless homeless man who had cost the city of Reno hundreds of thousands of dollars over the ten years he’d lived on the streets, in hospital bills, substance-abuse treatment costs, ambulance transportation, and much more. This chart, based on Black Knight data, shows the million dollar Murrays of the housing market, [plotting] repeat foreclosures and when they were taken out.
