Among the odder facets of the foreclosure crisis is that foreclosures aren't all that high nationwide. The problem, rather, is concentrated in Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada. The following graphic comes from research done by William Lucy and Jeff Herlitz at the University of Virginia and shows foreclosure data from the fourth quarter of 2008 broken down by states. Blue states are under the 2008 national average. Pink and red states are above it. 
What we had is less a foreclosure problem than a foreclosures in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida problem. The way you get 42 states with foreclosure rates beneath the national average is that those last eight states are post-crash dystopias inhabited mainly by squatters and feral dogs. And the way eight states bring down the economy is that the foreclosed assets were heavily leveraged: The whole country might as well have been the Golden State given that Citibank would bet $56 dollars on every buck of California mortgages. (Via Economix.)
What we had is less a foreclosure problem than a foreclosures in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida problem. The way you get 42 states with foreclosure rates beneath the national average is that those last eight states are post-crash dystopias inhabited mainly by squatters and feral dogs. And the way eight states bring down the economy is that the foreclosed assets were heavily leveraged: The whole country might as well have been the Golden State given that Citibank would bet $56 dollars on every buck of California mortgages. (Via Economix.) 
