Hmm, odd. The pace of foreclosures in the Seattle area seems to still be increasing.
The nationwide foreclosure surge continued in March, with the Seattle area following along at a lesser rate, according to a new report Monday.
The number of properties with foreclosure filings nationwide rose 57 percent in March from a year earlier and 5 percent from February, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., company that tracks foreclosures.
For King County, RealtyTrac reported 527 total foreclosure filings in March, up 31 percent from a year earlier and 7 percent from February.
The county had one filing for every 1,525 households, compared with one in every 528 households nationwide. The Seattle area, which RealtyTrac considers as King and Snohomish counties, had one filing per 1,423 households in February, putting it 167th out of 229 metropolitan areas; it was in 166th place in February and 173rd in January.
That’s still pretty far down on the list, which is to be expected since home price stagnation/deflation is only just getting started around here, and that seems to be what has really been driving foreclosures in other areas.
Meanwhile, foreclosures in Snohomish County were actually slightly lower than a year ago.
While foreclosures are rising in many areas of the country, the number of Snohomish County homeowners in jeopardy of losing their homes actually went down last month, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
In March, foreclosure filings were issued for 228 properties across the county. That translates a foreclosure rate of one out of every 1,187 households. That was down 3 percent from February and was 8 percent lower than the rate a year ago.
Unfortunately I have yet to locate any resource for historical foreclosure information, so we don’t have much to compare this with outside of these news reports.
(Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I, 04.15.2008)
(Eric Fetters, Everett Herald, 04.15.2008)