Foreclosure filings in Colorado’s 12 largest counties fell by 40 percent in April, compared with April 2010, according to a state report released today.
There were 1,933 foreclosure filings in April, compared with 3,228 in April 2010, according to the report by the Colorado Division of Housing. Meanwhile, foreclosure sales at auction fell 11.2 percent during the same period. There were 1,604 sales at auction during April 2011, compared with 1,806 in April 2010. April was the fifth consecutive month during which both filings and sales were down when compared to the same month a year earlier.
From March to April, however, foreclosure filings increased 4.0 percent and sales at auction fell 7.6 percent. Foreclosure filings hit a 31-month low in March, but have risen slightly since. From January to April this year, foreclosure filings are down 33.2 percent as compared to the same period last year, and foreclosure sales at auction are down 18 percent.
7-month-trend
“It’s now been seven months since new foreclosure filings increased year over year, and three of those months showed drops of 30 percent or more,” said Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing. “On the other hand, foreclosure sales at auction are actually up in 2011 compared to what we saw during March and April of 2008 and 2009. The filings news is great, but there are still clearly many pending foreclosures left to deal with.”
Foreclosure filings are the initial filing that begins the foreclosure process, and foreclosure sales totals are the total number of foreclosures that have been sold at auction at the end of the foreclosure process.
On a year-over-year basis, all metropolitan counties showed decreases in foreclosure filings. From April 2010 to April 2011, foreclosure filings fell 56.3 percent in Douglas County and 51.3 percent in Larimer County. The county with the smallest decrease was Pueblo County where filings dropped 7.1 percent, compared year over year.
Foreclosure sales totals across the state were mixed. Pueblo County, Boulder County and Jefferson County all reported increases in foreclosure sales at auction in April when compared to April of last year. All other counties, however, showed decreases with the largest decrease found in Weld County where foreclosure sales fell 39.2 percent, year over year.
“Over the past year, Weld County and metro Denver have been enjoying the most improvement,” McMaken said. “Mesa County looks like it might finally be leveling off after about 18 months of rather large increases in foreclosure activity, but totals haven’t started to fall yet.”
The report on the 12 largest counties is a supplement to the Division’s quarterly foreclosure report that includes all counties in Colorado.
The full report is available on the Division of Housing blog: http://www.divisionofhousing.com
This is good news, not great news, because of the stories behind the stories.
First, we know that many lenders have become reluctant to move more properties to foreclosure until the ramifications of the lawsuit by the state attorneys general are known. In the meantime, we continue to hear about people living essentially “rent free” in their homes without making payments. That said, the First Quarter 2011 national mortgage delinquency rate (30 days or more) was down to less than 8.5% from over 10% a year ago. However, this is still higher than any time before 2009 – we aren’t out of the woods yet.
To see some great charts of mortgage delinquencies check out the Calculated Risk blog at: http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html?Delinquency#category=Delinquency
According to “the Atlantic,” banks are accumulating foreclosed properties rather than quickly releasing them to the market. This helps banks avoid booking losses that would erode their capital, prevents the need to increase staff to process more foreclosures and prevents housing markets from being flooded – which would further drive down home prices and cause even more losses. If this is also true in Colorado, expect housing supply to continue to exceed demand for an extended period, and continued market malaise.
Link to article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/implications-of-foreclosure-inventory-growing/239325
Mike- I agree with everything you said. Although, what’s wrong with living rent free? Actually, it’s a government program sponsored by Fannie, Freddie and FHA known as, the “Squatter Stimulus” program. It is pumping $70B per year into the economy. If you are not paying rent/mortgage, you can spend your money on vacations, cars and Tiffany’s and the government picks up the tab via Fanie and Freddie bailouts. You get the point. And don’t think winding down the GSEs will solve anything, as the govt will never let the bonds default. The longer the government/banks drags this out, dripping REO’s onto the market the worse we will be. You are going to ruin the phycology for a generation of buyers and sellers. Kick out the owners, F/C and dump them on the market. Prices will correct, a market clearing price will be found and then price increase, or just drip, drip, drip, drip.
Clarifying my post above, the banks should probably foreclose before evicting. I think that’s how it works?
One of my contacts who studies a segment of the metro Denver market pretty closely tells me it appears lenders here are quickly putting homes on the market and selling them at market clearing prices – as you point out, a good thing. However, it also seems that many are filing NED’s but are not forcing the foreclosure sale. Could be they are trying to work on loan mod’s or could be they simply can’t book more losses until they replenish capital. Maybe we should be paying more attention to this “shadow pre-inventory!”