Time for our detailed look at foreclosure activity for December in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. First up, the Notice of Trustee Sale summary:
December 2009
King: 773 NTS, up 17% YOY
Snohomish: 417 NTS, up 41% YOY
Pierce: 523 NTS, down 10% YOY
Now that I’m turning into an expert with Tableau, I thought I’d go ahead and put our foreclosure (notice of trustee sale) data into an interactive table, as well:
The percentage of households is determined using OFM population estimates and household sizes from the 2000 Census. King County came in at 1 NTS per 1,009 households, Snohomish County had 1 NTS per 682 households, and Pierce had 1 NTS for every 656 households (higher is better).
Now that all of 2009 is in the bag, here’s a look at the last 10 years of total foreclosure notices and closed sales each year:
According to foreclosure tracking company RealtyTrac, Washington’s statewide foreclosure rate for 2009 of one foreclosure for every 78 housing units was 24th worst among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Note that RealtyTrac’s definition of “in foreclosure” is much broader than what we are using, and includes Notice of Default, Lis Pendens, Notice of Trustee Sale, and Real Estate Owned.
Lastly, here’s a look at the raw number of trustee sale notices sent in each county every month over the last ten years. For King County the data goes all the way back to 1979, just drag the date filter on the bottom all the way to the left to view the data.
I think it’s fair to describe the current level of foreclosures as “still seriously elevated.”
Note: The graphs above are derived from monthly Notice of Trustee Sale counts gathered at King, Snohomish, and Pierce County records. For a longer-term picture of King County foreclosures back to 1979, refer to the final chart in this post. For the full legal definition of what a Notice of Trustee Sale is and how it fits into the foreclosure process, check out RCW 61.24.040. The short version is that it is the notice sent to delinquent borrowers that their home will be repossessed in 90 days.