Foreclosure

Foreclosure is the legal proceeding in which a bank or other secured creditor sells or repossesses a parcel of real property (immovable property) due to the owner's failure to comply with an agreement between the lender and borrower called a "mortgage" or "deed of trust". Commonly, the violation of the mortgage is a default in payment of a promissory note, secured by a lien on the property. When the process is complete, it is typically said that "the lender has foreclosed its mortgage or lien."In attempting to identify bubbles before they burst, economists have developed a number of financial ratios and economic indicators that can be used to evaluate whether homes in a given area are fairly valued. By comparing current levels to previous levels that have proven unsustainable in the past (i.e. led to or at least accompanied crashes), one can make an educated guess as to whether a given real estate market is experiencing a bubble.
Indicators describe two interwoven aspects of housing bubble: a valuation component and a debt (or leverage) component. The valuation component measures how expensive houses are relative to what most people can afford, and the debt component measures how indebted households become in buying them for home or profit (and also how much exposure the banks accumulate by lending for them).
A basic summary of the progress of housing indicators for U.S. cities is provided by Business Week [5]
See also: real estate economics.