BasicGov / BLOG

November Report about US Foreclosures

RealtyTrac’s 3rd quarter report of foreclosures in the United States has both good and bad news:

•    Good news – cities who’ve been hardest hit for quite some time are seeing some foreclosure relief
•    Bad news – 2/3rds of metropolitan areas have an increase in the # of foreclosures.

The same report shows a list of the top 10 foreclosure rates and they are all in these states:
•    California
•    Florida
•    Nevada
•    Arizona

See news source for more information about the report.

Foreclosures Have Collateral Damage to Neighborhoods

The Urban Institute estimates that every foreclosure now causes $79,443 in collateral damage to neighbors, financial institutions, investors and local governments, in addition to the foreclosed homeowner themselves (see news source).

A survey conducted last year found these impacts to communities and local governments:

• Approximately 80% said that the foreclosure crisis has resulted in an increase in citizen complaints over the past year
• The most frequent complaints were overgrown yards (87%), property damage (61%) and garbage dumping (47%)
• 88% do not plan to increase staff (code enforcement officers) to manage the overall problem

An updated survey on the impact of foreclosures is being conducted and will be reported on in a few months.

RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, put out their report about foreclosures.

As reported in Business Week we are still not at the peak.

U.S. home foreclosures reached a record for the second consecutive month in May, with increases in every state, as lenders stepped up property seizures, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

Bank repossessions climbed 44 percent from May 2009 to 93,777, the Irvine, California-based data company said today in a statement. Foreclosure filings, including default and auction notices, rose about 1 percent to 322,920. One out of every 400 U.S. households received a filing.

“We’re nowhere near out of the woods,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president for marketing, said in a telephone interview. “We’re likely to set a quarterly record for home seizures if June is anything like May.”

Almost 3.1 million properties have been seized by banks since April 2005, Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac’s marketing communications manager, said in an interview today.

“The second quarter won’t be the peak,” Sharga said. “I’m not even sure 2010 will be.”

CNBC listed out the most impacted states …

The ten states with the highest foreclosure rates were little changed from the previous month. According to the RealtyTrac report, Nevada remains No. 1 with one in every 79 properties in the state getting a foreclosure notice, five times the national rate.

Arizona ranked second with one in every 169 households receiving a notice, followed by Florida (one in 174 households), California (one in 186 households) and Michigan (one in every 223 households.)
(See the full list in CNBC’s slideshow.)

Code enforcement software helps governments manage  property complaints from foreclosures ….

A  survey conducted last year found that the most frequent complaints related to foreclosures were:

• overgrown yards; property damage
• broken windows, gates, etc.
• garbage dumping

Survey also found that software was a good solution for cities/ towns to manage code enforcement process and help municipalities stay on top of the foreclosure property code regulations.