Foreclosure data, February 2008

March 13, 2008

There is a lot of interesting foreclosure data from RealtyTrac.

First of all, closer to home, South Carolina has far fewer foreclosures than much of the country both by the number of homes and the rate of foreclosure while the media is almost obsessed about the problem and the government is trying to figure out how to help those in trouble.

South Carolina is ranked 37th of the 50 states in foreclosure rates with 698 properties entering some stage of the foreclosure process last month with one foreclosure for every 2762 households in February. In the United States, there were 223,651 homes that entered some stage of the foreclosure process in February which was up 60% from February 2007 with one foreclosure for every 557 homes.

Which states have been most impacted by foreclosures by numbers of homes and and by the foreclosure rate.

RealtyTrac foreclosure map February 2008

Two states, California and Florida have 38.4% of all the foreclosure activity in the United States in February. Five states, adding Texas, Michigan and Ohio to California and Florida have over 50% of all foreclosure activity and ten states, adding Arizona, Illinois, Georgia, Colorado and Nevada to the above mentioned states comprise over 70% of all the foreclosures in the United States.

On a percentage rate basis, Nevada leads in the percentage of all homes in some stage of the foreclosure process followed by California, Florida, Arizona and Colorado. Interestingly, because of population disparity, Texas has a low rate with a lot of foreclosures while Nevada has a high rate despite fewer actual foreclosures.

Clearly, there is a problem. The combination of rapid escalation of home prices in some states that caused borrowers to overextend themselves and ultimately find they could no longer afford the mortgage payments and the economic woes causing job losses and outward migration in the industrial Midwest have negatively impacted the housing markets in those states.

If you are looking for distressed property sales in the Charleston South Carolina real estate market, there are some (sadly, there have been a couple in my neighborhood) but the Charleston real estate market does not resemble anything like the media might be reporting. If you are looking to only buy distressed properties, you really have to look to some of the above named states. Here are the complete statistics for foreclosure activity for February from RealtyTrac.

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Posted by Howard | Filed Under Blog, Charleston real estate, Mortgage / Finance, Statistics 

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One Response to “Foreclosure data, February 2008”

  1. What to do When Faced with Foreclosure - Seattle Post Intelligencer on March 13th, 2008 9:03 pm

    […] There is a lot of interesting foreclosure data from RealtyTrac. First of all, closer to home, South Carolina has far fewer foreclosures than much of the country both by the number of homes and the rate of foreclosure while the media is almost obsessed about the problem and the government is trying to figure out how to help those in trouble. South Carolina is ranked 37th of the 50 states in foreclosure rates with 698 properties entering some stage of the foreclosure process last month with one more… […]

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