Denver Ranks No. 45 for Foreclosures

By John Rebchook, on July 29th, 2009

The Denver-Aurora metro area ranked No. 45 in the nation for foreclosures in the first half of the year, the latest sign that while the local real estate market is improving, while much of the rest of the country is still caught in the downward spiral of people losing their homes.

A mid-year report released today by RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif., shows that foreclosures in the Denver-Aurora area are down 29.43 percent in the first half of the year.

“It seemed like in all of 2006 we led the nation that entire foreclosures,” said Bonnie Cox, a broker with RE/MAX Masters. “I can certainly do without that title. This is really good news.”

The report tracks 203 metropoitan areas. Greeley was ranked No. 29., Colorado Springs No. 40, and Boulder No. 115.

But perhaps what is most significant is that not only is Denver completely off the Top 10 list for foreclosures, but is is bucking a national trend.

The U.S. as a whole, according to RealtyTrac, showed a 14.66 percent increase in the first half of last year compared to the first six months of last year, and a 9.46 percent increase from July 2008 to December 2008. Denver showed a 7.9 percent drop during that period.

“Foreclosure activity continued its upward trajectory nationwide and in the majority of metro
areas in the first half of the year, but there are some significant differences beginning to show
up in the data,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “While some of
the markets that had the highest saturation of foreclosures over the past few years have seen
declining rates, new markets like Provo, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, have seen large increases. As
unemployment rates increase in different parts of the country, it’s very likely that we’ll see
similar patterns develop elsewhere.”

And Denver is still experiencing one foreclosure filing for every 67 households, which is 20 percent higher than one out of every 84 households for the U.S.

Las Vegas led the nation with one foreclosure filing for every 13 households up 56.22 percent from a year earlier. And from July 2008 to December 2008, its foreclosure filings increased by 22.2 percent.

An earlier report by InsideRealEstateNews.com, found that foreclosure filings in the seven-country area are down by 10.5 percent in the first half of the year. But RealtyTrac tracks every aspect of the foreclosure process from the initial filing to the REO, or Real Estate Owned, when the home is owned by the lender.

Cox, of RE/MAX, said she is seeing fewer foreclosures.

But Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing, has some questions about RealtyTrac’s data.

Although RealtyTrac does not break down the information by counties, “If we consider the Metro

Denver area to include Jefferson, Adams, Denver, Arapahoe, and Douglas Counties (since Realtytrac gives Boulder its own number), we end up with over 12,000 foreclosure filings,” McMaken said.” This compares to 15,630 as reported by RealtyTrac. Since I don’t know their methods in detail, I cannot say if they include Broomfield data or other numbers, but the difference here of approximately 3,500 may possibly be accounted for if we knew the exact method.

Recently, RealtyTrac’s numbers tended to be about 20 percent larger than what the Colorado Division of Housing has been counting, he notes.

” That may seem large, but a couple of years ago, their estimates, in summary at least, were often 80 percent larger than our totals,”McMaken said.” So, they’ve adjusted their method and that has brought estimates much closer to our own.”

Still, he sees a “significant difference” when it comes to Greeley.

“While our data covers Weld County overall, we show a notable increase in foreclosure activity in

Weld County overall, while RealtyTrac data shows a 11 percent decrease in the Greeley area.

As noted with their most recent state-by-state data, their overall summary of the state continues to reflect our own data in that the first half of this year shows a small decrease in overall totals when compared to the first half of last year.”

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