Tri-City Foreclosures Kept Checked By Buoyant Economy

Posted on May 26th, 2008 by hinson

The buoyancy of Tri-city (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland in Washington State) economy has kept in check foreclosure dominance. In April 2008 there were 77 foreclosure notices in contrast to 81 notices in April of 2007. Till April this year the total number of foreclosures is 290 – 4% increase as compared to the same period during the previous year.

The owner of Desert Canyon Mortgage Jim Pogue said in Kennwick that sub-prime mortgages are not playing a big part in foreclosures in this region. His own company had always shied away from it. Rather he had helped many to refinance out of the ARM’s with the help of FHASecure programme. Thus if any did get sucked into the foreclosure tunnel there is a way out at the end of it. The FHA help-schemes applies to those who are current in their mortgage payments or were so until the rates reset to higher notches.

Compared to other parts Washington State continues to do better battle the waves of foreclosures. Scott Jarvis of Washington State Department of Financial Institutions comments that although the situation here is not perfect it is a ‘better off than a lot of places around the country.’ The Mortgage Bankers Association of Washington D.C reported that during the last quarter of 2007, 0.7% of all the loans were in foreclosure. Nationally the figure was over 2% of all the loans. Jarvis stressed that the dominating presence or absence of sub-prime mortgages had a lot to do with the foreclosure numbers. During the last quarter of the previous year, of all the sub-prime loans, 4.1% were in foreclosure. Across the nation the figure was 8.7%. At the end of 2006 approximately 2.1% of the sub-prime loans in Washington were in foreclosure as compared to 4.5% in the rest of the country during the same period. Sub-prime loans had not played a dominant role in Washington. Moreover the real estate prices had remained stable. Foreclosures in Washington have not taken on problematic magnitude till now. This is the trend for the last 17 years. It has also helped those who got ensnared in the floating interest rates to change over to fixed rate mortgages. It must be kept in mind that under normal conditions foreclosures have always been there as part of the mortgage industry and its usual travails.

Nevertheless the people are being told that as soon as they feel the pulse of financial problems throbbing, they should seek help without waiting.