Foreclosures in region worse than reported

By Josh Brown
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 2, 2009

As lenders continued to repossess and auction off homes, foreclosures in Hampton Roads during the first half of the year reached record highs.

Even so, RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure-monitoring service based in Irvine, Calif., reported last week that Hampton Roads is in better shape than 91 other metro areas in the country.

But foreclosure activity is more prevalent here than RealtyTrac shows.

In February, the service stopped tracking in Virginia notices of default, the first stage of the foreclosure process after a homeowner has missed mortgage payments. Those notices were included in most other metro areas that were ranked worse than Hampton Roads. The service stopped tracking those notices in Virginia, citing a lack of confidence in their accuracy.

Filtering out notices of default from last year's figures, the recent report reveals the number of properties touched by foreclosure locally during the first half of 2009 was 5,253, up approximately 187 percent from the 1,832 during the same period last year.

That's a steeper increase than in all but seven other metros in the country.

RealtyTrac also said that one in every 129 homes in Hampton Roads had been in foreclosure at some point this year. The service calculated that figure by tallying all bank repossessions

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I think I deserve a cushy 6

Submitted by Ethan on Sun, 08/02/2009 at 2:58 am.

I think I deserve a cushy 6 figure job and a company M3 for being so right on this whole housing thing, so far before the mainstream media caught on. Our countries leaders couldn't figure it out (or at least act like they didn't know). So many "economists" were wrong. Just fascinates me that so many people are so wrapped up in the housing and real estate and credit stuff that they can't see beyond their own self interest to see whats going on. So uh, cushy job, anyone?

I know, I've been reading

Submitted by joanie06 on Sun, 08/02/2009 at 10:48 pm.

I know, I've been reading your posts for the past 5 years. Where are all the naysayers now. I even remember when you called the local AM radio station back in 06 and the real estate agent was saying there was never a better time to buy a house. Funny, she does not have that radio show anymore. We are not out of the woods yet by a long shot. The next shoe to drop will be commercial real estate and I think it will be sooner rather than later. It will also happen faster than residential.