As a deadline approaches on the $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement, regional data shows that the number of foreclosures in Nashua and Hillsborough County remains stubbornly high, even though home prices and sales have started to improve.

The Telegraph’s analysis of data from the Hillsborough County Registry of Deeds shows that
foreclosure filings in the county have barely budged over the past three years and have actually increased in Nashua over that time, even though the wave of dubious subprime loans that kicked off the housing market crash has passed.

Things are still much worse than when the crash began in 2007. In 2012, every local community had many more foreclosures, sometimes two or three times as many.

"This is a long, drawn-out process," said Jane Law, director of communications for the New Hampshire Housing Authority, concerning a recovery.

"This tells you the extent of the problem we got into during the housing bubble," said James Boffetti, assistant New Hampshire attorney general. "We’ve got a ways to go to get ourselves out of this."

Boffetti oversees the state’s implementation of a national mortgage foreclosure settlement that is providing millions of dollars of assistance to those with mortgage problems. Friday is the deadline for those who lost their homes to the five biggest banks while other programs are continuing for people with "underwater" mortgages.

To learn more about the program, call the attorney general’s mortgage hotline at 866-522-4450 or check doj.nh.gov/consumer/mortgage-settlement/index.htm

Across the county, foreclosure filings with the Registry of Deeds slipped just 2.5 percent in 2012 from the year before. Patterns are difficult to detect: Foreclosures rose 4 percent in Nashua but fell 5.5 percent in Manchester; rose 22 percent in Merrimack but fell 15 percent in Hudson; rose 2 percent in Milford but fell 19 percent in Amherst.

The data covers foreclosure filings for residences and businesses. This isn’t necessarily the same thing as a completed foreclosure, depending on circumstances, but the numbers are close to each other.

The bad news for homeowners comes at a time when news is finally getting a little better for home sellers.

The New Hampshire Association of Realtors says the median price for homes sold in the state has been rising over the past few months compared to a year earlier, while the number of homes and condominiums sold also has increased – for the first time since at least 2009.

"Every month in 2012, there has been a double-digit increase in units sold over the same time the previous year," said Dave Cummings, communications director for the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. Final data for December will not be available until later this week.

The median price also has risen, although it has risen less in Hillsborough County than in most of New Hampshire. Half of sales are below the median price and half are above it. Median price points can be skewed by various factors, including continued difficulty of first-time home buyers getting loans, which would stunt the number of sales of lower-priced homes and thus raise the median.

However, Cummings noted that inventory, a measure of how long it would take to sell off all existing residential units at current rates of sale, fell in 2012 close to the level that Realtors consider a "balanced market," rather than shifting the market away from sellers, as has been the case for years. At current rates, it would take a little less than nine months to sell off all units on the market in the state.

Law, of the New Hampshire Housing Authority, said the high foreclosure rates reflect continued weakness in the economy, even though the recession has ended.

"We have gotten back a lot of jobs we have lost during the recession, but we haven’t gotten them all back," she said.

Boffetti, the assistant attorney general, said that various aids for distressed homeowners have helped contain the problem.

"It’s fair to say that it could have been a lot worse, and we could have seen a more significant spike in foreclosures," he said. "But it’s hard to say, exactly; it’s hard to compare the figure with what might have been."

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashuatelegraph.com. Follow Brooks’ blog on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).

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