Seattle Bubble

Right on schedule, as home price declines in Seattle really start in earnest, foreclosures begin to “soar.”

Seattle-area foreclosures were up 54 percent in August from a year earlier, according to a new report.

The area, defined as King and Snohomish counties, had 1,185 properties with foreclosure filings, up 15 percent from July, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., company that tracks foreclosures.

The area’s rate of one filing for every 906 households put it 133rd out of 230 areas RealtyTrac ranks, up from 147th in July.

Statewide, properties with filings were up 64 percent from a year earlier and 15 percent from July. Washington’s rate of one filing for every 851 households put it 21st among states, up from 26th in July. U.S. foreclosures were up 27 percent from a year earlier and 12 percent from July, with one in every 416 households receiving a filing.

Also note coverage in the Everett Herald:

Snohomish County no longer seems immune from the wave of foreclosures that have affected homeowners nationwide, as the number of filings last month rose 39 percent compared with a year ago.

Across Washington, foreclosures rose by 64 percent last month, while the growth in filings across the nation was only 27 percent, according to RealtyTrac Inc. That national number was significantly lower than in previous months.

“There were some areas that were insulated a little bit before that are now catching up,” said Daren Blomquist, spokesman for RealtyTrac.

I guess we had plenty of folks jumping into dangerous loans here in the Puget Sound afer all.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 09.12.2008)
(Eric Fetters, Everett Herald, 09.12.2008)

Oh man. They let Elizabeth Rhodes take just one day off, and look what happens:

Gahh! It’s right there in giant black print, above the fold on the front page! I can’t imagine the Seattle Times’ real estate advertisers feeling too great about this…

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Foreclosures in the Seattle area were up 41% year-over-year, according to a report from RealtyTrac.

Seattle-area foreclosures continued to rise in July, according to a new report.

The area, defined as King and Snohomish counties, had 1,030 properties with foreclosure filings, up 41 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from June, according to a Thursday report from RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., company that tracks foreclosures.

The area’s rate of one filing for every 1,043 households put it 147th out of 230 areas RealtyTrac ranks, down from 145th in June.

Statewide foreclosures were up 56 percent from a year earlier and 0.7 percent from June. Washington’s rate of one filing for every 977 households put it 26th among states, down from 22nd in June. U.S. foreclosures were up 55 percent from a year earlier and 7.9 percent from June, with one in every 464 households receiving a filing.

Here’s a chart of King and Snohomish foreclosure data since late 2006, courtesy of data collected from Foreclosure.com by the Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking blog:

Click to enlarge

I feel that this trend will continue for a while.  As home prices continue to drop, many of the dangerous loans made in 2006 and 2007 will become foreclosures.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 08.14.2008)

Lots of local real estate news hitting today.

Here’s another short one: Moda Condos in Belltown goes rental.

When Moda Condominiums started accepting reservations in September 2006, prospective buyers lined up hours early and quickly locked up all 251 units.

Now, with the Belltown building two months from completion, Moda’s developers have changed it to rental apartments.

“The market and the financing conditions for condominiums have really taken a drastic turn,” said developer G. David Hoy, head of HMI Real Estate Inc. “The vast majority of (Moda’s) buyers decided not to proceed with the purchase of their unit.”

Some buyers found they could no longer get a loan, particularly for second homes or investment units, while others just got cold feet, Hoy said. “Because the vast majority have bailed out on us, we have no choice now but to turn it into a rental.”

Dang. The “vast majority.” I wonder how many of the other condo projects coming online in Seattle over the next couple years will meet the same fate.

(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 08.12.2008)

Even when we have direct access to the hard facts of the local real estate market, it’s still fun to see what kind of spin the local papers put into their report of the data. So, it is time yet again to continue our monthly tradition of rounding up all the local “mainstream” articles about last month’s housing data.

How many ways can you print “now is a great time to buy”? Read on to find out…

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Rain City Guide, Seattle Real Estate Professionals, and Seattle Bubble all get mentions in Aubrey Cohen’s latest piece for the P-I: Debate over real estate goes online

Real estate agent John “Mack” McCoy wasn’t expecting an argument when he started blogging about housing and commenting on other posts and news stories online.

“I started out thinking that people might be interested in what a real estate professional has to say about buying and selling homes,” he said.

“Now, it seems that the audience is (composed) of people who want to tell real estate professionals what they know about buying and selling homes.”
…
“I’m not speaking from the perspective of someone who has something to sell, but rather just a guy that is taking in a ton of information and trying to process it all to make it easier for other people to get beyond the sales pitches and find out what’s really going on,” [Seattle Bubble author Tim] Ellis said.

The article is worth a read, although there’s not really any new information in there for anyone that has been following any of those three sites. I guess the purpose of the article is more to point out the online discussion to folks that tend to just read the newspapers.