January Foreclosures

[Alan]

The month isn't quite over, but I am posting the numbers so far are impressive.

This is a count of "Notice of Trustee Sales" in January of 2007 and January 2008. This is the document that is filed when a lender is foreclosing on a property. It gives a three month notice of the public auction for a property. Not all of these properties will go to auction -- many will be sold or caught up before the auction. Also, not all of these notices are for foreclosure. Apparently, there are situations where the property of a deceased person goes through this process. Still, this number is a good metric of people who have gotten into trouble with their property.

1/1/8 - 1/29/8: 404
1/1/7 - 1/29/7: 257
1/1/7 - 1/31/7: 264

Taking just the notices up to today and comparing them to the entire month last year, these foreclosure notices are up a staggering 53%.

[Nell Plotts]

What is the scope of your data? City of ( ), County ( ). Fill in the paren, please.

[Alan]

King County.

http://www.metrokc.gov/recelec/records/

[jillayne]

the other metric to watch is for an increase in bankruptcy filings or increases in tax lien filings which often will pre-date notice of default recordings. BK and tax liens were way up in December so I expected to see a reported rise now. We still have MANY in denial here in the greater Puget Sound area.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[biliruben]

Wow. I didn't realize actual foreclosures were up that high. About 1/8th are in California.

There are about 70 million owner-occupied homes. About 51 million have mortgages. So more than 4% of those were foreclosed on in 2007, and 2008 is certain to be worse.

The homeownership rate is back down to 2001 levels. So much for "innovation" helping us become an "ownership society".

My guess we will continue to plummet, and may end up close to 63%, back where we were in the early 90s, or maybe lower.

If prices decline by 30%, as Krugman and some of the IBs are forecasting, among all those homeowners with a mortgage they will, on average, have no equity in their homes. None.

Where does the "ownership rate" go then? The only ones really owning their homes will be the ones with no mortgage. 20%.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

Just a quick follow up.



According to these charts, even the worst states saw less than 4% of their homes in foreclosure in 2007. So I'm a little confused. It seems like someone has the wrong numbers, or else things are being counted in odd ways.

Maybe the 2.2 million is total homes in foreclosure, but maybe for the states ranked chart, they treated second (or third or fifth) homes differently.

[biliruben]

It could be that 2 million have missed a payment.

[garth]

Seattle was the lowest in the country at 2.1% of mortgage holders 30 days or more past due according to the WSJ

[Alan]

Final 1/08 KC NTS count: 429

+62% YOY

[Alan]

And in the interest of undersampling hyperbola:

Last Friday was the first of February. On Friday, 42 NTS were recorded.

On 2/1/2007, 12 NTS were recorded.

That starts February out at +350% YOY.

Historically, more NTS are recorded on Friday than any other day of the week. This February has fiveFridays. That only happens once every 28 years. I expect February's numbers to be skewed a little bit.

[garth]

62% higher than almost nothing is still nothing. Double the current amount would be closer to normal.