Foreclosure Facts And Figures

Posted on June 13th, 2008 by hinson

Foreclosure facts and figures are alarming. The rates have spiked in Triad with exceptional concentrations in Guilford County. UNCG economist Don Jud is conducting researches. From March 2007 to March this year the foreclosure numbers have risen by 11.6% in Triad. It is a rise of 16.5% in Guilford County during this same period of a year.

Additional information is available from online data collecting group, RealtyTrac. In the entire country foreclosure postings jumped from 1.75 million in 2006 to 2.2 million in the subsequent year of 2007. Among the 100 jumbo metropolitan regions Greensboro/High Point ranked 48 as regards number of foreclosures in 2007. Charlotte and Raleigh ranked 34 and 53 respectively.

The figures show a slight shift in the trend for the better. In Greensboro/High Point the numbers during the first quarter of 2008 is down by 8.48% from the fourth quarter of 2007. The national trend however continues to be gloomy with an increase of 23% during the same period. During the first quarter of this year one out of 194 houses in US was caught in the foreclosure net. In the region Greenboro/High Point the proportion is 1:289. It improved the rank position to 63 for this quarter.

Jud comments that the foreclosure issue had become problematic since 2000. This was because of lax lending practices that encouraged ordinary people to be duped into risky sub-prime mortgages with floating interest. The easy flow of money emanating from these mortgages led many to speculate in properties. It caused an artificial inflation of prices in some places like Nevada, Florida and California. But when the bubble burst, as was inevitable, the crisis followed. Unable to repay increased rates the borrowers are surrendering one by one to foreclosures.

North Carolina is somewhat protected because of local state laws that reined in predatory lending. The North Carolina law is being taken up as a model for implementing new laws in the House. However North Carolina has not been totally spared the snow balling effect of what is going elsewhere in the country. Foreclosures tend to drag down the value of neighbouring estates. One foreclosed house brings down the value of single-family units adjacent to it by 9%. This was calculated based on the figures collected between 2005 and 2006 by Durham’s Center for Responsible Lending. The conclusion is that in the US 40.6 million houses in or about to enter foreclosure zone will lose $5,000 of its value. In Guilford County the average loss per house will be $1,157.