Residents is Chattanooga, Tennessee can take scant comfort from the fact that the growth in their foreclosure rate for the first quarter year-on-year was 35% below the national average – it still worsened by 25% compared to the same three month period last year.
One in every 211 properties in the 6 county Chattanooga metropolitan area or 1093 homes were served notices, while across the States the rate was one in 138, amounting to almost a million properties.
James Saccacio recently said that the housing market “is still not out of the woods yet” due to plummeting home values, and the time-out today on housing tax credits for first-time buyers of new homes.
The increasing homelessness among American households is actually worse, because some of these tragedies are hidden among short sales, where homes were sold below market value with forgiveness by lenders. “The Federal Government’s new program designed to encourage short sales, which was launched April 5, may have caused some lenders to delay initiating foreclosure against distressed properties – particularly in hard-hit housing markets where a short sale costs less than a foreclosure,” he told me.
By way of comparison, these are some comparable foreclosure filing rates during the first quarter of 2010 (compared to the national average of 138 homes):
- Atlanta, one of every 74
- Memphis, one of every 148
- Birmingham, one of every 194
- Nashville, one of every 210
- Chattanooga, one of every 211
- Knoxville, one of every 264
- Huntsville, one of every 455
I chatted recently to two Chattanooga locals experts to hear things from the horse’s mouth.
Chattanooga Realtor Aaron Shipley, who’s involved in local foreclosure sales, expects things to get worse, at least until employment picks up again. “In the next three months, I think we’re probably going to be slammed,” he told me. “I think some banks held back because of the tax incentives for first-time homebuyers and some of the efforts to try to work out some type of repayment option. But, as incentives go away and rates creep up, I’m afraid we may see even more foreclosures.”
Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprises specialist Jeremy Fitzsimmons agrees. He told me that many banks are staggering under the sheer volume of foreclosure cases in their in-trays. “But we’re still having a lot of success with our workout plans,” he added.
All this is bad news for many trusting, perhaps innocent Chattanooga households who popped a bottle of bubbly a few years ago as they moved into their new homes following half-expected bank approval of their loans. It doesn’t seem right, does it, that they should be the sole bearers of the burden now.
Do you agree that HAMP is failing in its task? Should Obama and his Treasury Department get tougher with the lending institutions? Hear what other observers think at http://www.foreclosuredatabank.com.
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- Trouble signs: Tax credit’s end and foreclosures’ rise
- Atlanta Bank Foreclosures: The Perfect Way to Purchase a New Home
- America’s Banks Continue to Stonewall HAMP – Foreclosure Listings Of Foreclosed Homes
