Georgia lenders took back 56,071 foreclosures from May 2011 through April 2012, putting the state at the fifth highest number of completions in the U.S., a real estate analysis firm says.
With a completion, the foreclosure process is over, and the bank can sell the property.
The news comes amid another report saying that in May, Georgia had the nation's highest foreclosure rate, which includes home owners who are delinquent on payments but have not yet been foreclosed.
If there is good news, it is that foreclosures, which keep home prices depressed, are being dealt with. They need to be repossessed and marketed or for homeowners to work out new payment plans for home prices to begin climbing again, as happened in April. Metro Atlanta prices climbed 0.8 percent, lifting Georgia prices from numbers not seen since 1996, according to the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
The metro region saw sales and prices climb this spring.
"[Buyers] realize we are at the bottom, or near it," said Amanda Charlesworth of Charlesworth Realty, which specializes in bank-owned sales.
"There is increased demand from buyers who have been on the fence and investors. Investors from all over the world are buying Atlanta property," she said.
The number of foreclosures, analyzed by California firm CoreLogic, showed that the number of completed foreclosures dropped nationally. There were 819,000 foreclosures completed from May 2011 through April 2012, compared to 1.1 million in the 12 months before that, company economist Mark Fleming said.
An Equifax report earlier this week noted that the value of mortgages that were 90 days or more past due also have dropped from the high of $700 billion in January 2010 to $450 billion. That is another indicator that lenders are dealing with the bad loans, but the $450 billion number is still elevated far above the value in a normal economy, the report noted.
Top five for completed foreclosures*
State #foreclosures Mortgages per foreclosure
California 133,003 40
Florida 92,405 32
Michigan 69,701 23
Texas 57,926 50
Georgia 56,071 25
* Analysis by CoreLogic for foreclosures from May 2011 through April 2012
