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.
Foreclosures by county through July
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
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