Foreclosure notices in metro Atlanta fell this month to the lowest total since 2001, driven in part by an improving economy, the holidays and moves by regulators to curb abusive foreclosure practices.
There were 1,691 properties advertised for foreclosure this month in the 13-county area, according to data released Monday by Kennesaw-based Equity Depot, which tracks foreclosures. That is down nearly one-third compared to January 2013 and by about one-fifth vs. December.
Metro Atlanta is still digging out of a housing and financial crisis that resulted in a historic spike in foreclosures, wrecked property values, eroded household wealth and pummeled local and state government coffers.
The drop in foreclosure notices in the past few years has helped property values rebound by reducing the number of fire-sale houses on the market. Values that plummeted to mid-1990s levels during the worst of the bust now are back to early 2004 levels, according to the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
But while notices are down and job growth has gained strength, Georgia still had the fifth-most completed foreclosures in the nation in October over the past 12 months with 28,028, according to the latest data from research firm CoreLogic. Metro Atlanta ranked second nationally among metro areas in completed foreclosures behind only the Tampa area.
“It’s just very hard to make an assessment on the economy with foreclosures right now,” said Barry Bramlett, president and CEO of Equity Depot. “I’m not sure how much they go hand in hand right now.”
An improving economy has led to fewer borrowers falling behind on their house payments, he said. But Bramlett said it is also important to note that mortgage companies and loan servicing firms, which process payments and handle foreclosures for lenders, have slowed the foreclosure pipeline after facing stiff state and federal regulatory action.
Regulators cracked down on abusive practices against troubled borrowers when foreclosures spiked. They’ve since enacted a raft of new regulations. Various regulatory actions have focused on banks’ use of faulty paperwork, foreclosing on mortgages they didn’t own, failing to provide proper notice of default and foreclosing while a borrower had the protection of bankruptcy or was under a loan modification plan.
As part of new rules and a chain of settlements between regulators and banks and other mortgage firms, lenders are now working more closely with borrowers to prevent foreclosures.
Still, the housing bust led to hundreds of thousands of foreclosures in Georgia over the past several years.
The region’s peak for foreclosure notices in one month was 13,834 in November 2010, according to Equity Depot data.
Sarah Mancini, an attorney with the Atlanta Legal Aid Society’s Home Defense Program, said her group has seen no slowdown in the volume of callers seeking mortgage help. Her group also still sees “dual-tracking” of borrowers, which is when homeowners have had foreclosure proceedings initiated even though should have been under the protection of a review period, trial modification or other relief, she said.
“I don’t know how to reconcile that with the (foreclosure notice) numbers, which I understand have gone down substantially,” Mancini said.
Bramlett said the number of January foreclosure advertisements is sometimes lower than December and February figures because of Christmas and New Year’s Day and the publication deadlines of county legal organs that publish the notices.
February and March figures should provide a better gauge for 2015, he said.
“Most people expect the number will rise at some point,” Bramlett said.
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