Today foreclosure site RealtyTrac released their February 2009 Foreclosure Market Report - read their announcement here.
At a high level, they announced that foreclosure filings, which includes everything from default notices, to auction sale notices to bank repossessions, went up 6% month over month, and up 30% year over year. Ouch.
And all the meanwhile, I thought that the various state&agency imposed moritoriums (moritoria?) might temporarily keep the filings flat in the short term.
Highlights from the report:
- States with highest foreclosure rates: NV, AZ and CA with 1:70, 1:147 and 1:165 housing units receiving foreclosure filings, respectively.
- Cities with the highest foreclosure rates are Las Vegas, at 7x the national average, and Reno-Sparks, NV; Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL; Phoenix, AZ; and Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino, Bekersfield, and Vallejo-Fairfield, CA.
The question in my mind is if any government stimulus can slow what feels like a foreclosure tidal wave, and hopefully put some of those homeowners that received default notices in February back in the black.
Some news from the past week leaves me less than optimistic:
Mortgage Bankers Assocation announced that the delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.88% of all loans outstanding as of Q4 2008.
According to the Labor Department, unemployment rose from 7.6 to 8.1% in February, with job losses across nearly all major industry sectors.
Concentration of foreclosures in 35 US counties - meaning the hardest hit areas will have an even more difficult time ending the cycle of foreclosure
On the flip side, there is a silver lining to this mess. Today my colleague was talking to a home buyer in NW Oregon whose offer on her first home was just accepted yesterday.
She’s a 7th grade humanities teacher, who went to the bank to get financing for a new car. While there, she realized she could take the intended car down payment and buy a 2 bedroom/3 bath single family home with a yard in a lovely neighborhood with green space!
What happened? She has a 797 credit score, homes in her area have fallen and are now “affordable” from her perspective, and the $8K from the government stimulus. After she factors in her tax deduction, she’s paying less than than she was in rent.
Do you have a story? We’d love to hear it.
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March 13th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Great post Heather. We need more of these articles in the media. Too often we hear about the gloom and doom in the market. I am starting to see a slight change myself in the property management side of things. Keep up the great posts!
March 14th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Our housing prices in Las Vegas have come down in the past couple of years from around $250+ SqFt to as low as $45 SqFt in some parts of the city. For those people left with jobs, they are now actually able to afford a home again. Bad news for everyone who has lost all of that equity, but it is good for the teachers, nurses, police officers… and the rest of the industries that live in and serve our city.
March 15th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Does Trulia plan of openning up a “short sale” or “pre-foreclosure” portal on the sie?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Great to hear about the great opportunity that was presented to the teacher. Considering the waves of bad market news, these stories of people becoming first time homeowners are always nice.