Milwaukee's mortgages compare favorably

Sometimes a picture is worth...well, you know. The New York Times recently had a graphic mapping the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis nationally, using data from major metropolitan areas. The map indicates Milwaukee isn't experiencing the crisis to the extent of many of our neighbors.

What it shows (in less than a thousand words) is that in metro Minneapolis/St. Paul, between 9% and 12% of all mortgages are subprime mortgages, and of those, 17.1% are in foreclosure. It's worse in metro Detroit, where over 15% of all mortgages are subprime and 20.6% of the subprime mortgages are in foreclosure.

The map indicates that in Wisconsin, metro Green Bay has been hit the hardest, with 12.8% of subprime mortgages in foreclosure, although less than 9% of the total mortgage market in Green Bay is subprime.

Reasons southeastern Wisconsin may weather the subprime crisis: The two accompanying maps show we were below the national average in new housing construction from 2004 to 2007 and had a lower unemployment rate than the national average during the same period.