An Ohio State University economist says the potential for owner-occupied home foreclosures is being exaggerated. For four years, Randal Olsen and others have been tracking the financial conditions of more than 12,500 U.S. households.
Olsen says their study defined homeowners most at risk as those who were two months or more behind in their mortgage and had less than 20 percent equity in their house. In 2007-2008, the percentage of homeowners most at risk was 8.5, two and half times what it was just two years earlier.