With the United States' government's plans for economic recovery well under way, and some stimulus programs even seemingly set to start scaling back in the not too distant future as soon as certain economic goals are met, a lot of people are wondering if these efforts have been enough and whether the economy is really benefiting and recovering in a meaningful way. The housing industry was especially affected by the crisis and, now, five years after the initial collapse, there are a lot of home buyers and home owners wondering "Are foreclosures going up or down?"

According to CoreLogic, in an article published this July 30^th by Mortgage News Daily, "as of June there were approximately 1 million homes in the foreclosure inventory, i.e. properties for which the formal process of foreclosure had begun.  This is a decrease of 400,000 since June 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 28 percent and a foreclosure inventory that is 2.9 percent smaller than in May.  The current foreclosure inventory represents 2.5 percent of all homes in the U.S. with a mortgage compared to 3.4 percent in June 2012."

The same article quotes CoreLogic's report: "Since the foreclosure crisis began in 2008 there have been approximately 4.5 million properties lost to foreclosure in the U.S., an average of 900,000 per year.  CoreLogic says that prior to 2007 foreclosures averaged about 250,000 per year."

It also stated that: "The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the 12 months ending in June wereFlorida (107,000), California (72,000), Michigan (63,000), Texas (48,000) and Georgia (44,000). These five states account for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally."

Many might be wondering why foreclosure rates are still so high even with government assistance programs such as the HAMP and HARP in place. Unfortunately, while these programs have helped millions of homeowners to avoid foreclosure, usually by reducing monthly payments or even the principle on the home through loan rewrites, there are many millions more who have not yet availed of these programs or who have tried to apply, but were rejected for any number of reasons, often including a poor NPV rating.

A recent team up between the American Association of Attorneys and Legal Professionals, Inc. (AAA) a service provider for law firms and attorneys specializing in foreclosure defense, and Real Estate Services and Technology Report (REST Report) a leading provider of independent loan disposition analysis software and solutions, may be the answer for many of these distressed home owners. The reliability and accurateness of the REST Report, which can help loss mitigation specialists to determine exactly what foreclosure alternatives homeowners qualify for and can also pinpoint any problems in an application for a loan rewrite or other loan solution, along with the legal expertise of AAA's affiliates when it comes to foreclosure defense make for a powerful joint offering that can help homeowners to stay where they belong - in their homes.