The Virginian-Pilot
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Foreclosure activity in Hampton Roads continued to climb last month and has increased more than threefold since last year as more banks repossessed homes in the region and homeowners struggled to pay mortgages, a report to be released today found.
The number of foreclosure-related notices in Hampton Roads was 922 in September, up 48 percent from August and nearly 352 percent from year-ago levels, according to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure-monitoring service based in Irvine, Calif.
The service tracks the number of bank repossessions, auctions of foreclosed homes and notices of default, which mark the beginning of the foreclosure process.
Last month, 227 homes in the region were listed as bank-owned. That's up from 175 in August.
Virginia Beach led the region last month in total number of filings, with 256. One in 677 homes there was in some state of foreclosure. In Norfolk, one in 491 homes had a filing.
While foreclosure activity in Hampton Roads is still far lower than areas of the country hit hardest by the downturn in the housing market, the number of filings locally has been steadily rising for the past 12 months.
That doesn't bode well for the local housing market, which has more homes for sale than at any point on record. In September, 14,753 homes were on the market in Hampton Roads, according to the Real Estate Information Network, the local multiple-listing service.
Vinod B. Agarwal, an economist at Old Dominion University, called the rise in foreclosure activity in the region "alarming" but said the rising number of homes being repossessed probably won't affect housing prices.
"Prices are on the decline anyhow," he said. "In terms of the total number of houses available on the marketplace, it's a relatively small percentage."
However, Agarwal predicted that the number of foreclosures would continue to rise in the coming months.
"There's anxiety right now in many households," he said. "The other problem is the credit conditions have tightened up so much. People with adjustable-rate mortgages they cannot afford cannot refinance that easily."
Josh Brown, (757) 446-2318, josh.brown@pilotonline.com
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Ethan
Im not sure the reason why this area has youth flight is exactly tied to bad bosses. Id associate it more with complete lack of demand, and lack of respect for any non technical jobs requiring college training. For instance, Ill use accounting since Im familiar with it. In the area, the approximate starting income for a senior accountant with a CPA is about 40k. In Indianapolis, IN, it is about 55k. In the area, on any given Sunday, you will find 5 jobs in the paper, and maybe 10 on Monster.com. In Indianapolis, IN, there are 30+ on Monster. Both metro areas are about the same population. By the way, did I mention that A/P clerks do not require CPA certification in Indianapolis, the way they are beginning to here? That is the difference. I could improve my standard of living 50% by simply moving from this overpriced sinkhole. There are similiar situations all over the mid-west, Austin, Milwaukee, Memphis, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis.
ODU Needs a New Economist
Please re-read the statements by the faux "economist", Vinod B. Agarwal. Not only does he contradict himself, he never mentions that the median house price in the area is 300K, yet the median income is around 60K. That's FIVE times the median income, folks.
He admits that the numbers of foreclosures are on the rise, and that there is a tightening in the availability of mortgages. Yet he insists that it won't affect prices here. I call BS. They already HAVE. And they will continue to decline until they are at a non-artificially-inflated amount where people who live and work here can afford a decent home at a reasonable price. It's time that buyers stop listening to the NAR line "now is a great time to buy!" and start listening with their wallets. Home prices are FINALLY coming down. And they WILL continue to do so until they come back down to reasonably affordable levels for the area. If you buy now, you will be sitting on negative equity when prices DO come back to normal
Gertz
Gertz - perhaps more people are doubling up now, or moving in with parents? Also there is quite a bit of empty housing in the USA, millions upon millions of homes actually. It will take a while for the demand to catch up with the supply. I also believe that the Hampton Roads region might be seeing (or see) an outflow of younger and educated people. Many of the better paying jobs are tied to the Military, and many of the people I know that work in these positions get absolutely frustrated because they get stuck working under people who shouldn't be the boss. The managers end up driving away the talent. People grow by being around other good people, and when you end up working around lots of people who aren't good or don't care about what they do it brings you down. So it's time to bolt! Someone else said the problem is the loans, the loans were the only way to achieve the prices that we have now. Take away the loans and you have 1998 to 2001 prices for property.
Making a guess
My point is: I have never had a problem renting this unit, but now I do, and I don't understand it at all. Someone please, tell me what's going on?
I'm making a guess, but maybe people that are upside down on their mortgages but have to move are choosing to rent rather than take the loss? A lot of new rentals would drop demand.
get rich quick pushers
The problem in the houseing market was caused by agents and lenders that pushed no income, No Doc, Int only and Payment opt loans including local people on the radio that told you to pull all your equity out of your home using "other peoples money" and invest it in more real estate or in a rip off like wextrust.
It was just a matter of time that peole could not pay loans that they could not afford and it blew up the lending world. Now all of us have to pay for the get rich quick pushers.
I own some real estate
I had a one bedroom condo in Ocean View for sale in a very quiet neighborhood listed at $83,000. It has been completely refubished from top to bottom, and in the past I had been renting it. I thought I would downsize some of my property. For 9 months, I only had a few people to even come and look at it and the majority of them wanted me to finance it. I don't want to deal with the paper. I now have it listed for rent at $700, the same thing I've rented it for for the past 3 years, and still I get no takers. The peopoe who do come and look at it, I won't rent to because they can't simply afford it.
My point is: I have never had a problem renting this unit, but now I do, and I don't understand it at all. Someone please, tell me what's going on?
glen...
Glen - the difference in area can have many factors. The military might be one here - people constantly coming and going, and I hear that many of the people coming insisted on jumping into the real estate game. Texas is the same way. $250K gets you a 2500+ sqft all brick home with basement and real plot of land in some areas. Someone else started to blame the Democrats, and I have to say stop with that non-sense. There were people from all sides working and cheating to make more money. If you go to a loan broker and wind up with some crazy subprime loan even though you really qualified for a conventional loan... then the broker just made extra money on you. I understand a good number of people were led into bad loans after being told they didn't qualify for normal loans, even though really they did qualify. More profits. The bail out is silly. The PTB think that people are going to hang around and pay forever on a depreciating property. People will walk. No instant riches through equity, no desire to pay monthly mortgage.
glengatti
For 120k in Hampton Roads? I think "shabby" would be a very positive observation on what youd get. I dont think anything that isnt basically condemnable or riddled with bullets can be had in Hampton Roads for under 150k.
Flawed philosophy
This is the downside of the flawed philosophy that everyone should own a home. Freddie and Fanny were created from that philosophy. Owning has the advantage of building equity but comes with a lot of expenses, many of them unexpected. I was taught to take the mortgage payment, double it, and use that number to decide if your income can support it.
This isn't a D or R thing no matter how much the politicians try to lie and blame each other. This has been a core problem since the 70s, and they've all had their turn at the wheel to fix it but decided to do nothing.
...
I'm still trying to figure out why you get a shabby "condo" in the run down hoods of Hampton Roads for $120,000, but for $100,000 you can get a brick 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house with a 2 car garage and a large lot in the suburbs of Atlanta.... something just isn't right.... dont believe me?? just check a real estate website....