Here’s a new feature that I’ll make monthly if there’s demand for it. Although the NWMLS data is not released until later this week and we usually wait for the detailed foreclosure report until later in the month, certain basic data can be obtained via a simple search of King County Records.
Using data pulled from public documents filed with King County, here’s a preview of July’s foreclosure and home sale stats:
First up, total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with the county:
County sales as measured by warranty deeds were down about 6% from last year in July.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
July saw a big decline over June’s surge, but another big year-over-year rise and the second-highest level ever.
Here’s another measure of foreclosures, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”
Since trustee deeds will naturally lag notices of trustee sale (which are filed 90 days prior to a scheduled sale), it is no surprise that July set a new record for this type of repossession.
Lastly, here’s an approximate guess at where the month-end inventory was, based on our sidebar inventory tracker (powered by Estately):
Nothing too surprising here. Looks like there may be a slight increase from last month, but still a considerable decrease from July last year (which was supposedly the first month in which stats were generated under the new definitions).
Overall, I’m still not seeing any strong signs of an imminent recovery in the numbers. Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.