RealtyTrac´s figures, for the January to August period, show that the amount of homes in the $1 million plus price value, that are in the process of foreclosure has risen to $7,968. For the same period last year, the figure was a lot lower, at 4,214. It gets worse for the $2 million plus homes, as their figures for the same time periods as above went from 201 to 499.

It seems that big investment buyers are feeling the crunch and holding back. It was just in 2007, that over 64,300 homes in the $1 million plus range, were sold. According to DataQuick, this was three times the figure for 2002.

All the new credit regulations, up and down markets, lowering home prices, and job eliminations in the financial and management sector, have finally brought the troubles of the market to the wealthy. Patricia Tan, a top dollar Florida Broker, manages several million dollar distressed listings and foreclosures. She says that her clients normally run into 3 categories: homeowners who attempted to trade up to a larger home but were unable to sell the first one, flippers/naive speculators, and newly unemployed executives.

Karl Case, a Wellesley College economist, attributed this to lack of wiggle room with their loans, lack of space in case for the ups and the downs of the market. Case remarked that, "If you've got a lender who pushed them to the limit and you have some change in supply or demand, you'll have foreclosures,". Tom Lawler, a housing economist in VA, seconded this opinion saying, "Loans were unbelievably risky in every category,...We're seeing the results of that lending in the high end."

Unfortunately, this occurrence in high cost homes, does not look to have an end in site. Brokers with an area of expertise in foreclosure, say that banks are calling them around the clock to have them appraise foreclosed homes in the $1 million range. Also, according to a new report, delinquencies are also rising for jumbo prime loans, which are big loans made to high-quality borrowers. Around 4% of prime borrowers who took out adjustable rate mortgages in 2007, have missed at least 2 monthly payments, which is up .52% from the total in 2005. The amount of jumbo mortgages currently held, could be near $1.34 trillion.

At the moment, the most common area for luxury foreclosures is found in the Sunbelt. RealtyTrac reported that California holds almost half of the $1 million foreclosure homes in the nation, with 4,756 from the start of 2008 to the end of August. This was followed by Florida at 1,088, and then Nevada with 215.