More Wealthy Home Owners to Face Foreclosure

Houses costing more than $5 million will be part of the next foreclosure boom, according to a study by RealtyTrac for The Wall Street Journal.

In 2009, 1,312 homes costing more than $5 million faced foreclosure auctions. In February 2010 alone, 352 homes were on the auction block. First American CoreLogic tracks 1,700 homes nationwide that have mortgages greater than $4 million. Of those, 14.8 percent were 90 days or more past due as of Jan. 31.

That is almost double the 8.7 percent of homes with lesser mortgages that were similarly past due.These pricey properties are difficult to sell because there are fewer buyers and financing is hard to get, but there’s a psychological element to the problem too.

"It's very, very difficult for these [home owners] to believe they've had such a severe reversal of fortune," says Maggie Navarro, an associate with Coldwell Banker Old Pasadena in Southern California.