It’s been a while since I’ve pulled foreclosure statistics for Greensboro. Frankly, I’ve gotten rather busy – listing foreclosures, ironically. The Fannie Mae properties I list, along with the ‘civilian’ buyers and sellers with whom I work, have kept me hopping. But it has seemed over the last few weeks that the Fannie Mae pipeline has slowed a bit. This got me wondering about foreclosure listings in general in Greensboro. So, back to my data mining and spreadsheets I went.

Here’s what I found:

In the last couple of months, foreclosure listings in Greensboro have indeed slowed up. The number of foreclosures listed in the 9 residential Greensboro codes over the last 12 weeks has been 91. That is LOW compared to what’s been going on since I started tracking this data in 2008. Really low.

The same week last year the 12 week running total was 160. The year before that, 131.

The downward trend has been fairly steady since Spring, witnessed by this graphic:

And the listings are down not only by raw numbers but also by the percentage of overall listings. For some time the percentage of foreclosures in relation to all listings has been about 12% – 15% at any given time. The last six weeks the percentage has averaged  7%.

The week ending July 31, 2001 had only 2 foreclosure listings. Two?! That’s awesome.

Right?

Being a generally optimistic person, my recent receipt of a button that reads “Moody Bitch” notwithstanding, I’d like to think our trip on this awful roller coaster ride is coming to a close. But being optimistic doesn’t mean being naive. Almost certainly we’re going to to have another wave of foreclosed properties coming on the market.

A quick check of tax records show that there have been 15 foreclosures posted in these zips in just the last 4 weeks that aren’t on the market yet. And that isn’t including properties where “notices of default” have been filed but where foreclosures haven’t been finalized.

The numbers may be down due to several factors, the least of which is that the sheer volume of properties has overwhelmed the banks. There are only so many reps to handle the process – now that the robo signers have been laid off…

Still, a breather from the grim parade of distressed properties is welcome.

Here are the rest of the graphics. I guess you’ll be able to tell when foreclosure listings pick back up when I don’t have time to post about foreclosure listings!

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of October 30, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been tracking foreclosure activity in Greensboro. At first, foreclosures were, while not unheard of in Greensboro, were rather few and far between. As a matter of fact, up until late 2008, our MLS didn’t have a designation for when a property was listed as a foreclosure sale. I, along with everyone else, had hoped that the real estate market and economy was experiencing a momentary, if jarring, correction.

Well, if hopes were calorie-free pizza, we’d all be skinnier.

Not only are foreclosed properties and the impact that have on communities and the real estate market here for a while, they’re becoming commonplace. Over the last twelve weeks in Greensboro, about 18% of all properties listed have been foreclosures.* That’s a lot.

Comparing the numbers to a year ago and even two years ago shows that the trend isn’t improving. It’s actually going in the wrong direction. For instance, this week last year there were 6 new foreclosure listings in Greensboro. The year before that, 12.

This year there were 16.

And the rolling 12-week totals, what I believe to be a better indicator of things, doesn’t provide a rosier picture. There were in deed many more foreclosures listed in the 12 weeks leading up to this time in 2009 (293) than this year (178) but this is more than last year (166). And it must be remembered that in 2009, these properties were just beginning to hit the market. In the early and last quarter 2010, there were halts to new listings while either the banks were trying to catch their breath or, later, trying to get their ducks in a row. All indications are that foreclosures are going to be coming online steadily for the next couple of years.

Alas, hoping things were different won’t make them so. Hunkering down is about all we can do.

Although pizza can sometimes help.

More graphs for those who can't get enough of them:

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of September 29, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

I was going to write about the weekly foreclosure listings in Greensboro, but huge news is taking front seat right now: Bank of America will stop the foreclosure process in the entire country. Several other banks have announced the same for several states.

What does this mean to our area?

Heck, I’m not going to say I know when people who are paid great sums of money to know, predict and analyze these things obviously are unsure themselves. (If they know so much, howzcome we’re in this fix?)

I can say what *my* predictions are:

• In the short term, at least, the inventory of properties on the market will shrink. In Greensboro, foreclosures have consistently comprised about 8% of all listings. And our inventory is about 10% – 20% higher than it should be. The laws of supply and demand being what they are, it can be guessed less inventory will help shore up prices for those non-foreclosure sellers. A good thing.
• But there are going to be pending closings that get jacked up by this, so there will be some disappointed, angry buyers. A bad thing.
• Then again, this “break” may give those homeowners who are on the bring of being foreclosed upon a chance to get things together, or find a job or whatever will help them get caught up on payments. Another good thing.
• It may just be a delay of the inevitable and in a few months – or however long it takes to for these giant, overfed, overpaid institutions to get THEIR acts together – we’ll have another rush of properties hitting the market. A not good thing.

So, today I see 2 “good” things, 1 “bad” and one “not good” thing. I’m calling it a net plus for “good things” and going to have a glass of wine to celebrate.

The weekly Greensboro foreclosure numbers will have to wait. Just like Bank of America will have to wait before booting people out of their houses.

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The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

It looks like there’s a teeniest reason for hope in the latest weekly foreclosure listings in Greensboro. Couple this with last week’s post about August home sales and seems start to feel positively positive.

I haven’t posted every week with foreclosure numbers but I have compiled them faithfully every Friday, pulling all new listings for the previous week. I’m here to tell you I see the beginnings of a real trend. There are just fewer listings every week than there have been*. The 12-week rolling periods is the most telling of the stats as far as I’m concerned and the graph at left shows that there has been a gradual but steady drop in the cumulative number of foreclosure listings in Greensboro.

Looking even further back, the week-to-week-to-week comparisons from 2008 through 2010 show a dramatic drop in listings.

This may seem like faint goodness, but things can’t start getting really better until they stop getting worse.

It’s too soon to say that the worst is behind us. There may be more waves of foreclosure listings ahead. But at least there’s a staunch to the bleeding. For now.

Here are the rest of the numbers:

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of September 29, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

More of the same. Almost exactly the same, as a matter of fact. Of the new listings last week in Greensboro’s nine residential zip codes, 17 were foreclosures. That represents about 13% of the total new listings.

That’s not a great number.

But it is, alas, the way things have been for the last several weeks. Earlier this year, we might see about 8% or 9% of new listings be foreclosures but the last 8 weeks have averaged 13.2%. The highest was four weeks ago when 15.3% of new listings were foreclosures. Gag.

The only thing that might be a bit encouraging is that the number really is fairly steady in the 13% range. At some point the number will come down. I won’t be standing on one foot waiting for it, but it will happen.

Another sad-but-true consistent stat is that two Greensboro zip codes – 27405 and 27406 – continue to have the lion’s share of foreclosure: 44% cumulatively; 23% and 21% respectively. It should be noted, however, that back in October of 2009, these two zips had  more than 50% of listed foreclosures. This may be an indication of foreclosures impacting more areas of town more than things really improving in those two zips. Is the glass half empty or half full?

I just know that sometimes looking at these stats make me reach for a glass totally full. Of gin.

An even less uplifting number is 185. That’s how many foreclosures have been listed in Greensboro in the last 12 weeks. That’s more than have been in any of the previous 3 months of running 12-week totals. It isn’t surprising that foreclosures continue to hit the market. Lenders have been working through back-logs of delinquent loans for months and they’ll keep on processing them for some time. It takes months of non-payment for a lender to foreclose, then months more for the paperwork to be slogged through, then more time yet to get a property listed.

What does all this mean to you, dear reader? It means there’s still a lot of shaking yet to go on in the real estate market. Frankly, foreclosure listings will probably still be hitting the market for months after the unemployment figures rebound (for the previously mentioned time-frame reason).

So, I’ll keep watching and writing. You keep reading. And one of these days all of our glasses will be full.

Mine, probably still with gin.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of June 29, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Nothing shattering in the new foreclosure listings in Greensboro last week. There were 15 new listings, compared with 19 the week before but more than the two weeks prior (12  & 14). The only slightly good news is that the trend for rolling 12-week periods shows a decline. There were 181 foreclosures listed in the 12 weeks ending May 30th. This is the lowest that metric has been since the 12-week period ending April 18th.

*Meh*

As has been the case almost from the beginning of this sad state of affairs,  zip codes 27405 and 27406 are carrying the lion’s share of the listings, with 19% and 24%, respectively. But 27407 is now approaching their numbers with 18% of the foreclosures.

A big change has been in the 27410 zip code. At the beginning of the year, only about 7% of total listings were located there. Now it is about 13%. It should be noted that 27410 is by far the largest zip code both geographically and in regards to the number of overall listings, so that fact that there is a growing percentage of foreclosures isn’t surprising. You can read a profile of the 27410 zip code I wrote here.

Of the new foreclosure listings last week, the 15 were (mostly) spread evenly over 6 of 9 zips.

Comparing last week with the corresponding week from last year, and 2010 has been worse in both the actual number of listings for the week and in the 12-week rolling period. Way worse:

Frankly, there will probably be new foreclosures coming on the market for some time. Even while things may start improving in the economy as a whole, the foreclosure process take weeks and months to work through the pipeline. So we won’t see properties hit the market for some time that are already headed that way.

However the numbers shake out, you can read about them here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities

After pretty much ignoring the data about new foreclosure listings in Greensboro for a few weeks (uh, months) I’m back at it. Sadly, not much has really changed.

Overall, the news about real estate has actually been more positive lately. I hesitate to type that too loudly as it may scare off the good mojo. And some of the good sales information is no doubt due to the Home Buyer’s Tax Credit that recently went the way of the VCR so we may start hearing more subdued reports regarding pending sales and mortgage applications. But there does seem to be a different atmosphere out there. I have clients who are interested in buying, even though they won’t be getting paid by the government to do so, and the wild look in many Realtors’ eyes has been turned down to a mere “freaked out” look rather than the “total panic” we’ve all gotten used to seeing.

Back to Greensboro’s foreclosures, suffice to say that there are plenty of them and the numbers continue to grow at a sickly rate every week. This is too bad because last year I was writing about how weekly listings and – to me, more illustrative of the situation – the number of listings over the previous 12 weeks was declining.

Not any more.

As a matter of fact, year over year comparisons of last week’s numbers show a decided increase in listings. And the trend shows no real indication of slowing.

The numbers:

The week ending last Sunday (May 23rd) had 19 new foreclosures listed. All but one Greensboro zip code – 27408 – had listings, with 27455 having the most at 5.

Looking at these zip codes over the last 4 weeks we see that 27405 and 27406 have had the most foreclosure listings at 15 and 17 respectively. There were no new listings in 27408 over the last four weeks.

Taking all foreclosure listings over all Greensboro zips over the last 12 weeks, it’s easy to see that see that there are still three zip codes that have been disproportionately impacted by foreclosures. 27405, 27406 and 27408 have a combined total of 114 listings over the last 12 weeks out of 186 for all zip codes. That translates to over 60% of foreclosures. On the other end of the spectrum, 27408 had 1% of foreclosures listed over the same period.

The 12-week rolling period isn’t any more cheering. The trend is up. And then up some more:

Being sufficiently depressed over all this so I decided to look at the same week last year. It didn’t make me feel any better:

I’m going to choose to believe all this activity is like when a toilet gets backed up and then a great woosh of … well, of stuff that smells exactly like these foreclosure numbers….goes flying through the pipes all at once.

Enough of my poetic writing. I’m off to make some showing appointments. That’s good news, right?

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities

Foreclosure listings for the week ending 11/1/2009 continue what has been a rather unattractive trend. Namely, they keep coming.

There were 17 properties listed during the time period. And while 6 of the 9 Greensboro residential zip codes had listings, 27405 and 27406 are still the two with the lion’s share of foreclosures. There were 3 and 6 listings in those zips, respectively. Over the last 4 weeks, those zips have had 38 of the 68 foreclosures listed (56%) and 80 of 157 of foreclosures listed over the last 12 weeks (57%).

The rolling 12-week numbers are still ugly as well. There have been 157 foreclosures listed between 8/10 and 11/1. That’s just wrong.

The list prices for the foreclosure last week are:

• highest: $249,900
• lowest $22,900
• average: $116,082
• median: $104,900

Over the last 12 months those numbers look like this:

• highest: $674,900
• lowest $8,000
• average: $89,900
• median: $70,200

Below are a few foreclosures available. And if you are thinking of buying one, it would be better to please go along and do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Sorry. Just preparing to get my “Christmas Carol” on.

2530 W. Woodlyn Way, Greensboro, NC 27407 $154,900 (MLS 553989)

2627 Stratford Drive, Greensboro, NC $99,900 (MLS 558067)

1608 Stokes, Greensboro, NC $29,500 (MLS 561085)

As always, whether the news is good or bad, you’ll see it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities

The weather in Greensboro has made a change from warm and sunny to decidedly autumn-like. The skies have been overcast, we’ve gotten some much needed if somewhat mood depressing rain and people have broken out their nubby sweaters.

Along with the gray skies are the latest foreclosure listing numbers for Greensboro. The last few weeks haven’t been great. The week ending 10/11/09 had 21 new foreclosure listings*. That’s the highest weekly number in 2009.

Gray, indeed.

The most recent listings are spread over nearly all the nine residential Greensboro zip codes with only 27409 and 27455 having none. And, again, 27405 and 27406 are the most impacted zip codes, with 8 and 4 new listings, respectively.

Why the uptick in foreclosure listings lately? There are surely several reasons, many of which are beyond me. But in discussing this with a colleague, Leslie Wales-Hecht, a couple of days ago, she pointed out that over the last several months there have been a good many sellers, along with their lenders, trying to stave off foreclosure by going the ‘short sale’ route.

Short sales, she pointed out, are the last stop before foreclosure. And since the short sale process is a long and complicated one, the number of foreclosure listings may be have simply been delayed while the short sale attempts were made. Leslie should know as she is actually a certified Short Sale Specialist and has been up to he pretty eyes in short sales for some time.

For those properties where short sale terms were not able to be worked out the inevitable was merely put off.

Makes sense to me.

Whatever the reason, it will be a delight to report on this site when the numbers start shriveling up and blowing away. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, some details:

The prices for the the week’s foreclosures range from $15,900 to $329,900. 18 of the 21 are under $100,000 and 14 are under $75,000. Three of the listings are already under contract. Look below for a few listings representative of what is available in the foreclosure market in Greensboro as of today.

1207 Arlington Street, Greensboro, NC $19,900 (MLS#556629)

2627 Stratford Dr, Greensboro, NC $99,900 (MLS#55067)

4200 Peppervine Trail, Greensboro, NC $229,900 (MLS#530680)

As always, whether the news is good or bad, you’ll see it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities