When it comes to housing, there seems to be no shortage of numbers and statistics. Here’s a dose from a recently released report.

• “New research by the AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI) to be released tomorrow shows that for the six month period ending in December, 2007, 684,000 older Americans (aged 50 and over) were either in foreclosure or were delinquent in mortgage payments. That’s more than a quarter of all foreclosures or delinquencies (28.1 percent). Delinquency normally refers to mortgage payments at least 30 days in arrears.”

• African-Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately affected in comparison with whites in their age group. Among mortgage holders aged 50 and over, African American and Hispanic borrowers both have foreclosure rates of 0.51 percent, compared to a rate of 0.19 percent for Caucasians.

• Older Americans are severely impacted by holding subprime loans. Older holders of subprime first mortgages are 17 times more likely to be in foreclosure than are older holders of prime loans.

• While older Americans are clearly vulnerable to the continuing mortgage crisis, the foreclosure rate at the end of last year for people aged 50 and over was 0.24 percent, compared with a total all-age U.S. average of 0.39 percent.