Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,
A total of 227,548 properties in the United States made foreclosure filings in the first six months of this year, a 21 percent increase from the same period last year, according to real estate analytics company ATTOM.
The first half foreclosure filings are also up by 28 percent from the same period two years back, ATTOM said in a July 16 report.
In states with a minimum of 500 foreclosure filings, Idaho registered the largest year-over-year increase: 59 percent. This was closely followed by Colorado with 57 percent, Georgia with 52 percent, and North Carolina with 47 percent.
Foreclosure is a legal process by which a mortgage lender repossesses a property after the borrower fails to make mortgage payments on time. Initially, the lender issues a notice of default once payments are missed for 90 days. If the borrower fails to settle the claim within 30 days, the lender can repossess the property and sell it off.
In the first half of the year, 0.16 percent of all housing units made a foreclosure filing, according to ATTOM.
Florida had the highest rate, with 0.27 percent of housing units making a filing. South Carolina was in the second spot with a 0.26 percent rate, followed by Indiana and Delaware, both with a rate of 0.25 percent.
“Foreclosure activity continued to increase in the first half of 2026, but the broader picture remains one of a market that is gradually returning to more typical patterns,” Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM, said in a statement.
Foreclosure filings in a year’s first half hit their lowest level in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but have risen since. Prior to the pandemic, first-half filing numbers were higher than the 2026 figure for every single year between 2008 and 2019.
However, the filing increase in the first half of 2026 also suggests “that some homeowners may be facing greater financial strain than they were a year ago,” Barber said.
In a June 12 post, legal services company Nolo predicted foreclosure rates would gradually rise in the latter part of 2026.
The company cited factors such as high interest rates and reduced buyer demand as contributing to a growing housing crisis. Unless there is significant relief or intervention, the trend of rising foreclosures is likely to continue, it said.
High Mortgage Rates, Avoiding ForeclosureThe average weekly rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has mostly remained above the 6 percent level since September 2022, according to data from Freddie Mac.
Since mid-May, rates have been hovering around the 6.5 percent level. For the week ending July 15, rates were at 6.55 percent.
Meanwhile, demand in the housing market has subsided, with some house hunters backing off due to high costs, real estate brokerage Redfin said in a July 16 statement.
“High mortgage rates mean that even homes in the most affordable price point—under $350,000 in the Grand Rapids area—are a stretch for a lot of buyers, and they’re hard to find and competitive,” Christine Kooiker, a Redfin Premier agent in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said in a statement.
Elevated mortgage rates can raise monthly payments for homeowners who have taken loans at variable rates. This can squeeze them financially, potentially pushing some properties into foreclosure.
For homeowners struggling to pay their monthly mortgages, there are some ways they can avoid having their properties foreclosed. One way is to refinance the mortgage, according to a Sept. 26, 2025, post by financial services company Rocket Mortgage.
Refinancing can help a homeowner shift to a more affordable monthly payment plan in case the current one is financially challenging.
Another option is to seek mortgage forbearance from the lender. If a lender approves, mortgage payments may be temporarily paused or lowered to give the homeowner enough time to get their finances back in shape.
Tyler Durden Sat, 07/18/2026 - 10:30Communications and even the supply of drinking water has been severely impacted in some places of southern Iran, amid continuing US airstrikes on civic and national infrastructure, amid the seventh consecutive day of war.
"Hormozgan’s chief of communications and information technology says the US's overnight attacks disrupted telecommunications in Bandar Abbas and Hajiabad, in the northern part of the province," Al Jazeera reports
Authorities there have tallied at least 116 telecommunication towers which were taken out of service due to the US onslaught. This has resulted in outages and disruptions of fixed-line, mobile, and internet services, per Tasnim news agency.
via FarsThis suggests the US is returning to a strategy which seeks to create destabilization within, targeting the ability of the public to communicate and access information, returning the situation to the early weeks of the war, which saw Tehran authorities themselves curb internet and some telecoms access for the citizenry.
It might also be that the US simply perceives infrastructure like telecommunications towers as utilized chiefly by the government and military, in a dual-use way, and so is ready to punish entire swathes of the country in order to cripple this ability.
It could be Washington still maintains the fantasy of fomenting a mass uprising against government leadership by imposing as much daily hardship and disruption, and economic pain as possible. Of course, the biggest squeeze is the blockade of Iranian ports and disallowing the country's ability to sell oil.
The Wall Street Journal this week observed that it will continue to be ordinary Iranians feeling the immense strain:
Iran’s economy is already buckling under the combined weight of years of sanctions and soaring inflation. The conflict has intensified those pressures by damaging factories, disrupting trade and payments, shutting down internet access and further weakening the currency.
Consumer prices in June were up 88.6% from a year earlier, according to official statistics. Just in the first few days of July, the price of a tray of eggs in Tehran shot up by 40%, to the equivalent of $3.30, according to Iran’s Fars news agency, which is close to the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It seems the US wants to create the conditions of a return to the January economic protests, which resulted in thousands of deaths, which involved protesters and rioters clashing with police and security services, the latter which suffered deaths too as clearly some of the anti-government elements were armed.
According to more of the Iranian economy's spiral via the WSJ report:
Iran’s gross domestic product is expected to shrink by 5.4% this year, according to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund prepared before the recent uptick in fighting.
According to Kahalzadeh’s calculations, only the top 3% of Iranian households are able to afford the full food basket recommended by Iranian health officials. Many families are buying basic groceries like rice, meat and pasta on credit via a government program. Others are eliminating meat from meals and purchasing staples one at a time as their wages lose value.
Below: Despite US bombs blowing up vital telecoms infrastructure, there's a renewed effort by Saudi-Israeli aligned opposition media to accuse the regime of imposing a new internet blackout...
Meanwhile the war on infrastructure is only growing more aggressive and somewhat unprecedented. Power is one thing, but going after the population's water supply?...
"Iranian authorities also said the supply of drinking water to several villages in the south had been cut off, accusing the US of striking power facilities and desalination plant pumps in the village of Bonji, according to Tasnim," Al Jazeera writes.
Already Iranians nationwide have been urged to conserve electricity - for example by switching off air conditioners during peak hours, amid an ongoing severe strain on the power grid. Things look to get a lot worse for Iranians, and the outlook for broader war, before they get better.
Tyler Durden Sat, 07/18/2026 - 09:55