Foreclosures settle in below 10,000 monthly

By Christopher Quinn

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Lenders have filed foreclosure notices on fewer than 10,000 homes and businesses a month for four straight months in metro Atlanta, the first time in more than two years the number has stayed that low for that long, numbers from Equity Depot show.

Barry Bramlett, the president of the Kennesaw company, said the number of foreclosure notices through July was 6 percent lower than for the same period last year.

Don’t be too relieved, housing experts say. There is more bad news yet to come.

And to put things in perspective, July’s 8,579 foreclosure notices was up 16 percent from June and 4 percent above July 2010.

“It is going to be nasty for the rest of the year,” said Steve Palm of Smart Numbers in Marietta, which tracks housing sales.

Even last June’s low count of 7,374 metro foreclosures is about double the monthly number compared to 2005, when the housing market was near its peak.

Foreclosures and distress sales drag down home values.

“There are more short sales going on these days than foreclosures,” Palm said. A short sale is when a homeowner and lender agree to sell a house for less than the owner owes.

Equity Depot shows foreclosures in 13 metro counties bouncing up and down for the last four months, but remaining below the historic highs of more than 10,000 monthly seen six times in 2010. The peakwas 13,130 last August.

Alan J. Ziobrowski, an associate professor of real estate at Georgia State University, believes the slowing could be partly due to banks taking back fewer properties while they work though problems with paperwork and foreclosure procedures.

“The numbers are modestly lower, it’s true, but banks now are under tremendous pressure to clean up their acts as to how they foreclose,” he said.

“They are not squeezing the trigger on forclosures as rapidly because they are more concerned about paperwork and trying to get it right,” Ziobrowski said.

County 2011 2010

Bartow 1,071 1,256

Cherokee 2,596 2,945

Clayton 5,464 5,643

Cobb 7,705 8,080

DeKalb 10,079 10,557

Douglas 2,236 2,403

Fayette 1,112 1,080

Forsyth 1,866 2,058

Fulton 11,926 13,688

Gwinnett 13,602 14,317

Hall 1,959 2,075

Henry 3,885 3,714

Rockdale 1,507 1,612

Total 65,008 69,428

Source: Equity Depot