You are out of touch with the real data. Those arms are being refi through HARP 1.0 and HARP 2.0. Those are mostly long gone. The total foreclosed single family units in Colorado last month is exactly 3584. Foreclosure filing is about double that. Yes 50% of folks are able to save their homes after their court date.
Keep in mind that arms (w/ teaser rate) made up 12% of new loans in 2004-2008 in Colorado (over 88% of borrowers are responsible creditor!!)
The latest data, 7.40% US home owners are at least 30 day delinquent with 3% of that over 90 days (plenty of repeat offenders). The number decreases with 120 days and so on. Home affordability programs are actually working good. (This is a whole other rant - folks who pay on time gets 3.375% rate while if you are facing foreclosure you are qualified for 2.5% rate). Nationwide the number is 1.4 million (3 months ago) delinquency - in which 3-5% of that will result in foreclosure. Foreclosure level has dropped to pre 2007 level.
It has been 4 years since the crash, if you are trying to tell me some freeloaders can stay in their homes for 4 years without being foreclosure so the bank can skew the number, you are again completely wrong. I fought one of my buddy's foreclosure off for 24 months in which he didn't make one payment. Yes, borrower stayed there for 24 months, but its well deserved as their original loan officer put them in the stupid option arms with 5% negative payment/month. That lawsuit costed $12000 in lawyer fees and hundreds of hours of my time. A normal foreclosure proceeding takes only 4-6 months from default to filing. Court hearing w/o loan mod request is usually scheduled soon after.
To state that Freddie and Fannie are holding onto millions of foreclosure properties is simply false. The fact is the number of foreclosed units available in the market and pending are relative small compare to the 4.47 million homes being sold this year.
In current market, HUD foreclosure listing gets 2-3 offers on each unit. I know there are 2-3 realtors on this site that can attest how hard it is to find borrower's dream home in this market.
Finally, due to inflation, rental is 20-30% higher than a mortgage payment based on same property value and the current rate of 3 and some %. Pre 2008, one can argue that there is benefit to rent, today, unless you are a bad creditor, there is no reason not to save few grands a year by owning instead of renting.
References:
https://dola.colorado.gov/app_upload...eport_home.pdf
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/051...ncy_survey.asp
http://www.realtor.org/news-releases...ntinue-to-rise
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...f97_story.html
I wish I can post some raw data available through my workplace, but references above should give you at least some indication. Sorry for the lengthy post - I am heavily invested in properties, and been in wholesale lending business for awhile now. This is my thing :D