It’s time once again to expand on our preview of foreclosure activity with a more detailed look at February’s stats in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. First up, the Notice of Trustee Sale summary:
February 2012
King: 453 NTS, down 50.9% YOY
Snohomish: 246 NTS, down 47.1% YOY
Pierce: 285 NTS, down 47.2% YOY
All three counties were down yet again from a year ago, but up month-to-month for the second month in a row. It would seem that we may have hit a near-term “bottom” for foreclosures, as the banks get their new processes together and pick the pace back up.
Here’s your interactive Tableau dashboard updated with the latest foreclosure data:
The percentage of households in the chart above is determined using OFM population estimates and household sizes from the 2000 Census. King County came in at 1 NTS per 1,835 households, Snohomish County had 1 NTS per 1,115 households, and Pierce had 1 NTS for every 1,130 households (higher is better).
According to foreclosure tracking company RealtyTrac, Washington’s statewide foreclosure rate for December of one foreclosure for every 1,475 housing units was 35th highest among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Note that RealtyTrac’s definition of “in foreclosure” is much broader than what we are using, and includes Notice of Default, Lis Pendens, Notice of Trustee Sale, and Real Estate Owned.
Reminder: I had been including a heat map of Washington counties from RealtyTrac on these posts each month, but they did something to their embedded map that was forwarding my site readers to a RealtyTrac registration page, which is not acceptable. So no more Washington State heat map.
Hit the jump for a larger version of the chart that shows the percentage of households in each county receiving a foreclosure notice each month:
Note: The graphs above are derived from monthly Notice of Trustee Sale counts gathered at King, Snohomish, and Pierce County records. For a longer-term picture of King County foreclosures back to 1979, hit this chart and drag the date slider to its full range. For the full legal definition of what a Notice of Trustee Sale is and how it fits into the foreclosure process, check out RCW 61.24.040. The short version is that it is the notice sent to delinquent borrowers that their home will be repossessed in 90 days.