Here’s some interesting news. Apparently even double-digit appreciation isn’t enough to keep foreclosures from rising around here, much like they are across the country:
Following a national trend, Washington state’s mortgage foreclosures increased significantly last year, claiming 18,527 homes.
In the Seattle/Bellevue/Everett area, one in every 136 homeowners was displaced by foreclosure, as was one in every 75 Tacoma owners.
Still, the state and the Seattle area faired better than the nation as a whole, according to RealtyTrac, a California-based foreclosure-information provider. It released its 2006 annual report late last week.
Washington state foreclosures grew 25 percent last year compared with a year earlier — far below the national increase of 42 percent.
Phew! Thankfully we’re safe because we’re “far below the national increase.”
However, since Ms. Rhodes mentioned that we are “following a national trend,” and given the assumption that the Seattle housing market lags most of the nation by six months to a year, I wonder how much foreclosures increased nationally in 2005?
Let’s see… Ah, here we go:
January 23, 2006 – RealtyTrac™ … today released year-end data from its 2005 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which showed that 846,982 properties nationwide entered some stage of foreclosure in 2005, and a 25 percent increase in the number of new foreclosures from the first quarter to the fourth quarter.
Hmm, interesting.
(Elizabeth Rhodes, Seattle Times, 01.27.2007)