Colorado back on top of foreclosures (Denver Business Journal)

The DBJ reports that Colorado has regained the dubious foreclosure crown ahead of former #1 Nevada. Colorado has one foreclosure filing for every 376 households, and Greeley tops 200 metropolitan areas with a rate of one filing for every 169 households - six times the national average. It's interesting to note that the runner-ups to Greeley were Ft. Worth (1/242) and Detroit (1/250), hardly hotbeds of real estate activity or bubble markets. One wonders about the casuses of the highest foreclosure rates. Greeley, in Weld County, has attracted an influx of residents - many commuting into to Denver, about 65 miles to the south - due to its relatively inexpensive housing relative to the Denver metropolitan area as a whole. Perhaps a greater degree of subprime lending is at play here in conjunction with lower household income levels, suggesting that these particular households have little margin for error when facing the changing terms of an ARM or other non-fixed mortgage instrument, to say nothing of difficulty in selling existing homes.