AARP Spotlights Seniors' Foreclosure Problems

Over 25% of mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures involve seniors, according to a study by AARP, and older homeowners with subprime mortgages are 17 times more likely to end up in foreclosure than their peers with prime mortgages. "The public perception is that older Americans are financially secure in their homes," said Susan Reinhard, director of AARP's Public Policy Institution. "But the reality is that while many are in fact secure, hundreds of thousands are not and face unsettling uncertainty over their futures as homeowners." The AARP study found that 28% of delinquencies and foreclosures that occurred during the second half of 2007 involved people 50 years and older. "Over 684,000 older Americans were either delinquent or in foreclosure at the end of 2007," the study says. "Of these, nearly 50,000 were in foreclosure or had already lost their homes." The study also picked up disparities between minorities and whites. Foreclosure rates for senior African-American and Hispanic homeowners were 0.51%, compared with 0.19% for senior Caucasians. African-Americans seniors hold over 6.8% of first mortgages in this age group, but represent 14.4% of the foreclosures among seniors.