Get a life...
Posted on 09/23/2003 5:00:09 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
A record number of Atlanta homeowners are facing foreclosure, despite an improving economy and still-strong housing market. The number of homes in the process of foreclosure is up 24.8 percent over the same time last year, according to data from the Atlanta Foreclosure Report.
The threat of foreclosure looms over both moderately priced and high-end homes, in neighborhoods from Buckhead to Stone Mountain, as job losses and high debt loads take their toll.
"[24.8 percent] is a pretty good jump," said Roger Tutterow, an economist at Kennesaw State University who follows the Atlanta housing market. "Although the overall economy may be picking up speed, we really haven't seen a whole lot of gains in employment and personal income, which are factors that go into foreclosures. Those are the parts of the economy that need to improve the foreclosure numbers."
Atlanta Foreclosure Report's September report, for homes that will face foreclosure Oct. 7, hit a new record in the metro area with 3,431 properties listed, said Bill Bramlett, managing partner of EquiSystems LLC, which puts out the foreclosure report. Georgia law requires foreclosures to be advertised for four consecutive weeks before a house can be reclaimed by a lender. Foreclosures take place the first Tuesday of each month.
Jude Rasmus didn't need the foreclosure report to tell her the number of foreclosures is way up.
"We took in 71 properties since Sept. 2 [when the most recent homes in foreclosure were sold on the courthouse steps]," said Rasmus, president of National Foreclosure Service in Marietta, a real estate company that specializes in selling foreclosed homes. "That is a record-breaker to take in one month since we've been in the business 14 years."
"Nothing's a surprise anymore, but some new observations that we've come up with this year are that the rate of repeat properties has really climbed," Bramlett said.
Typically, 30 percent of all homes in the process of foreclosure were repeat homes, meaning they had been listed already for foreclosure within the past two years, but escaped actual foreclosure, Bramlett said.
"Now we're seeing 50 percent of homes [being repeated on the listings]," he said. "I think we are seeing a final weeding out of all people who have had problems making payments."
Foreclosures aren't the only indicator of economic distress on the rise in Atlanta. Bankruptcies (of all types) are up 14.6 percent through August, compared with the same time last year, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court's Northern District of Georgia Atlanta division.
Trouble in paradise
Lithonia's 30058 ZIP code has the most homes listed for foreclosure with 974. Most of the mortgages in foreclosure were in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, according to the Atlanta Foreclosure Report data. During the same time last year, Lithonia's 30058 ZIP code posted 812 homes in the process of foreclosure.
But homes in Atlanta's tonier ZIP codes aren't immune from the foreclosure process. Atlanta's 30327 ZIP code, home to Tuxedo Road, has had 90 homes face foreclosure so far this year, including a $3.1 million home on Rembrandt Road owned by Jack D. Aberbook, according to the Atlanta Foreclosure Report. That compares with 64 homes during the same time last year.
Bill Lawson, vice president and managing broker of Harry Norman Realtors' Gwinnett/DeKalb office, said he doesn't think job loss is the only reason for high foreclosures in his region, which includes Lithonia and Stone Mountain.
"Now we have to point the finger back to the mortgage end of it," he said. "They are allowing loans that maybe they shouldn't. Everybody wants people to get into their dream homes, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying it's fraud, but they are stretching people into houses they can't afford."
Rasmus said she is seeing more homes in Stone Mountain, and more condos, going on the auction block.
Rasmus sees banks being more aggressive in trying to get foreclosed homes sold.
"The banks are taking a whole different position in pricing," she said.
A few months ago maybe a bank held one or two REOs, or real-estate owned, properties -- a bank's term for a foreclosed home. Now a bank may have 15, Rasmus said.
But Mary Welch, a spokesperson for Bank of America Corp., said the Charlotte, N.C.-based mega-bank is "not taking any other measures to move properties quicker. It's very much business as usual."
Bank of America simply wants to recover the money lost in the defaulted mortgage, she said.
Better times ahead?
Nationally, loans in the process of foreclosure and loans in delinquency declined slightly in the second quarter, compared with the same time last year, according to data released Sept. 10 by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.
The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process nationally in the second quarter stood at 1.12, compared with 1.13 percent a year ago, the MBA said. Also in the second quarter, 4.62 percent of all loans were in delinquency, compared with 4.77 percent of loans in the second quarter of 2002.
In Georgia, 5.9 percent of all loans were in delinquency in the second quarter, while 1.27 percent of loans were in the process of foreclosure, according to the data. The association does not break the data down by metropolitan statistical area.
The rise in delinquencies since first-quarter 2000 is attributable to job losses across the country, said Doug Duncan, MBA senior vice president and chief economist.
"Job growth and employment is the single most determinant in changes in the level of delinquencies and foreclosures," he said.
I'm not buying anything until I pay off my student loans, I don't care how low rates are!
Get a life...
You have hit the proverbial nail on the head...and you obviously know Atlanta demographics. If you've lived in Atlanta for a number of years you will remember all the Atlanta Journal Constitution articles lamenting the fact certain zip codes had a high number of loan denials and they just happened to be primarily black areas. No where in the articles did they also discuss the high number of poor credit risks in these areas. As you suggest, the banks backed down and now are reaping what they sowed.
The banks(esp the big banks) are bragging about how many americans they are letting go and how much outsourcing to cheap foreign labor) they are doing with asia, sending all IT, loan analysts, and general processing out there to asians. They are laying off all their american customers, so what else do they expect to happen?
I agree. This constant obsession with every bit of bad news is becoming pathetic.
It makes me wonder when to recommend euthanasia, or as we like to call it "life termination assistance".
How could one person spread so much doom and gloom and misery on FR?
And who could ever forget:
I also predicted a federal budget deficit when I saw all the jobs moving to asia, and I was right.
I continue to predict continuing federal budget deficits until the millions of people who lost their jobs to asia, get good paying jobs again, and start paying lots of taxes again - if ever.
Nationally, loans in the process of foreclosure and loans in delinquency declined slightly in the second quarter, compared with the same time last year, according to data released Sept. 10 by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.
Nationally, loans in the process of foreclosure and loans in delinquency declined slightly in the second quarter, compared with the same time last year, according to data released Sept. 10 by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.
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