Delinquencies and foreclosures likely will continue to rise for a while longer, for several reasons. First, supply-demand imbalances in many housing markets suggest that some further declines in house prices are likely, implying additional reductions in borrowers' equity. Second, many subprime borrowers are facing imminent resets of the interest rates on their mortgages.
In 2008, about 1-1/2 million loans, representing more than 40 percent of the outstanding stock of subprime ARMs, are scheduled to reset. We estimate that the interest rate on a typical subprime ARM scheduled to reset in the current quarter will increase from just above 8 percent to about 9-1/4 percent, raising the monthly payment by more than 10 percent, to $ on average.