Metro foreclosure notices down in April, for year

The painfully slow healing of the metro Atlanta housing market continued with a slight dip in foreclosure filings.

There were 2,277 filings for April in the 13 core counties of metro Atlanta, down 3.4 percent from the month before, according to a report provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Equity Depot.

This month’s numbers are “very consistent with prior months,” said Barry Bramlett, president and CEO of the Kennesaw-based company.

Foreclosure notices, filed early each month, do not always mean the loss of a home. Sometimes, the owner pays what is owed and keeps the home from being sold at auction the next month.

But the owner’s struggle to prevent foreclosure may only postpone the loss of the home — as a huge number of metro Atlantans found out in the recent housing crisis.

Between 2006 and March 2014, about 235,000 homeowners lost homes to foreclosure, according to ViaSearch, an Atlanta-based market research company.

Whether they lead to actual foreclosure or not, the number of filings is seen as a rough guide to distress in the economy. Because housing is so pivotal to the economy and to household finances, more foreclosures spell trouble.

Foreclosure filings so far this year are back to levels not seen since 2001, before the bubble in housing dramatically expanded the number of homeowners.

The number of filings so far this year — 8,257— is 15 percent below the total from the first four months of last year.

By contrast, in 2010, in the wake of a dramatic drop in the value of metro Atlanta homes, the region recorded more than 40,000 foreclosure filings in the first four months of the year while on its way to a year-end total of 127,140.

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Michael Kanell

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