Foreclosure notices in the 13-county metro area jumped 59 percent to a new record in August compared to July, reversing a sharp drop from June.
Equity Depot said 13,130 foreclosure notices were published in August. That was up from 8,264 in July, when a 25 percent drop from the previous month kindled hopes that the trend of rising foreclosures had turned..
Barry Bramlett, president of the Alpharetta-based real estate information firm, called the August total “off the chart,” adding in an e-mail that it is a “record number for the 13 county metro and looks like a record for the state as well.”
The peak prior to this month was 12,568 notices in March.
Gwinnett County led the metro area in August with 2,733 published notices, followed by Fulton and DeKalb with 2,518 and 2,031, respectively.
Equity Depot tracks notices published for public auctions scheduled the following month. Not all the listed homes will actually be foreclosed upon, as some homeowners make payments or work out deals with lenders.
The calendar provided a few extra days for filing of August notices, contributing to the rise. But the year-to-date trend is up in all five of the largest metro counties.
Bramlett expected a rise of about 25 percent. “This month could just be an unexplained anomaly. No way to know until next month.”
“I will say the foreclosure crisis now is clearly a self-feeding monster,” Bramlett added. “People are underwater and clearly many are making the judgment that a credit hit is better than throwing money away they don’t feel they’ll recover.”
Foreclosure notices by county so far this year, compared to the same period last year, with percent change
2009 / 2010 / % change
Clayton 6,408 / 6,710 / 4.7%
Cobb 8,151/ 9,593/ 17.7%
DeKalb 11,520/ 12,588/ 9.3%
Fulton 15,965 / 16,206/ 1.5%
Gwinnett 14,828/ 17,050/ 15.0%
Source: analysis of Equity Depot figures
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