The Center for Regional Studies has just completed the reports for home foreclosures and resales for February 2010 — the reports are on the CRS website at www.centerforregionalstudies.org, or click here for direct access.
Foreclosures in Washoe County dropped 13% from January to February and were down 37% from a year ago. Could this be the start of a new trend? It’s too early to tell, but looking at the data for notices of default (NODs) from area title companies tells me that we’re not out of the woods yet. A notice of default is issued when a mortgage holder is more than 90 days late with a payment, and those have been trending up over the past several months. Seen as a “leading indicator” for actual foreclosure activity, this spike in delinquent mortgages certainly does not make me confident that foreclosures aren’t going to follow the same path. A more likely explanation for the slight decrease in foreclosures so far in 2010 could be that banks are just biding their time — holding off on foreclosures as long as possible in an effort to keep people in their homes, and to keep those homes off the banks’ balance sheets.
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Interesting thoughts on American foreclosure. We’re lucky it’s not that bad over here in the UK. Our shortage of houses supply has always kept things together a bit!