Missouri’s Pre-Foreclosure Crisis: A Glimpse Into the Lives Behind the Numbers

A Dramatic Drop, But the Struggle Persists

In September 2024, Missouri recorded 146 properties entering pre-foreclosure, a significant decrease from previous months and years. That drop, nearly 23% from August’s 189 properties and more than 57% from the 341 properties in September of 2023, might suggest things are getting better. But when we look closer and speak to those on the brink of losing their homes, a far more complicated story emerges.

Behind each statistic is a family navigating the suffocating pressure of inflation, stagnant wages, and rising bills. Many have poured years, decades even, into their homes, only to find themselves now fighting to keep their front doors from closing permanently.

The Human Cost of Economic Stability

Take Patricia Ramirez, a retired nurse in her early sixties living in central Missouri. After surviving two rounds of layoffs and supporting her daughter through a medical crisis, Patricia fell behind on her mortgage payments in 2023. “I’ve always paid my bills,” she says quietly, her voice tinged with disbelief. “I never thought I’d be one of those people.”

Patricia’s case reflects the deep reach of financial vulnerability in the current economic climate. Many residents in Missouri, especially low and fixed-income families, are carrying the weight of cumulative stressors: rising grocery costs, spiking utility bills during the winter months, sharply increasing property insurance rates, and the threat of sudden illness or job loss.

This harsh economic reality has pushed thousands into financial precarity. While the numbers may be lower now than they were at this time last year, the lived experience of housing insecurity has not become any less brutal. It simply affects a smaller, though no less deserving, group of Missourians.

A Long View: How the Data Stacks Up

There’s no doubt that the 2024 numbers mark a downturn in pre-foreclosure activity. Between January and September, Missouri logged 1,800 pre-foreclosure filings. Given the current monthly rate, the state may finish the year with fewer filings than 2023’s total of 3,448.

For historical context, that’s still a fraction of what the state experienced during the Great Recession. At its worst in 2010, Missouri saw 28,184 pre-foreclosure filings in a single year. Since then, policy guardrails, stricter lending standards, and foreclosure moratoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic have helped prevent another collapse, at least of that magnitude.

But the story doesn’t end with the numbers dropping.

In recent interviews, housing counselors across the state reported an uptick in clients dealing with complex financial circumstances from delayed medical bills turned into liens, to ballooning adjustable-rate mortgages that are now unaffordable due to interest rate hikes made by the Federal Reserve to cool inflation. The lower foreclosure numbers might be masking the fact that people are hanging on by a thread, availing themselves of forbearance programs, nonprofit mediation services, or simply relying on family to scrape by.

Inflation, Wages, and the Vanishing Middle Ground

The root causes of housing instability are not narrowly financial, they’re structural. Missouri’s median wages have not moved in lockstep with the cost of living. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation in essential goods and services has outpaced wage growth for low and middle-income households for the past three years. Housing costs, while still modest in Missouri compared to coastal markets, are rising steadily, fueled by a combination of low housing supply and investor activity in economically depressed regions.

John Weaver, a housing counselor in Springfield, explains: “We get calls every week from families who are only one or two missed paychecks away from falling behind. They aren’t irresponsible. These are two-income households. They work in schools, construction, your local gas station. But the math just doesn’t work anymore.”

In Missouri, a state where homeownership has historically signified stability and independence, the idea that a home no longer guarantees security is a bitter, often shameful, realization for many.