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Foreclosures: Tacoma up, Seattle down
Home foreclosures rose 7 percent in Tacoma this summer, while falling 7 percent in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area, a national foreclosure report released late last week shows.
One in every 329 Tacoma homeowners was in serious danger of losing a home, a fate that was shared by one in every 542 homeowners in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area.
The report comes at a time when real-estate analysts nationally are anxiously watching for signs that falling home sales and the resetting of interest rates on adjustable-rate mortgages may drive more homeowners into default.
So far, the Seattle area has escaped that, according to the report by RealtyTrac, a California-based provider of foreclosure data.
The Seattle area's foreclosure rate was significantly better than the national norm — one foreclosure for every 363 U.S. households — during the third quarter of this year.
That doesn't surprise Rich Bennion, executive vice president and residential-lending director for Seattle-based HomeStreet Bank.
Although local home sales are down, prices remain strong, and "when prices are strong, you don't have foreclosures," Bennion said.
"If someone gets into trouble, they're able to sell their house for enough to pay the mortgage off so they don't have to go into foreclosure," he said.
"We have a combination of things that create a housing shortage," he said. "We have positive job growth, personal-income growth and increasing population. Coupled with that, we have real barriers to growth — not much flat, dry ground to build on and growth management, which constricts supply."
All that puts housing at a premium, which dampens the foreclosure rate. Greater Seattle ranks 67th among the 100 largest metropolitan areas, RealtyTrac's report says.
Seattle-area foreclosures dropped 7.34 percent from the second quarter to the third; 1,805 homes entered some stage of foreclosure in July, August or September.
Revenge of the second tiers: Portland among fastest appreciating markets
The "Portland-Salem" metro area posted the second-highest appreciation for residential real estate in the 2006 third quarter, according to Zillow, the Seattle-based service that provides online home valuations.
The highest property values were in megamarkets such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and New York, but it was the second-tier cities that posted the highest growth.
Portland-Salem posted 17.9 percent year-to-year appreciation, second only to Jacksonville, Fla., which showed a 19 percent gain. The Top Five was rounded out by Orlando, Fla. (17.6 percent), Richmond-Petersburg, Va. (16.2 percent) and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. (15.9 percent).
Statistics for every city in Seattle Area .
The Portland article reminded me to check my house on Zillow...I was surprised to see that the value jumped up another 10K this month and now stands at $497,452. It was valued at $379 when we bought in April 2005. $118K (31%) increase in a year and a half.
'Shugy, no offense but you gotta layoff whatever substance is getting passed around in your jazz circles...
Portland? What kind of rags do you read?
Check IT
A real estate reckoning (in the Portland metro-area)
Foreclosures: Tacoma up, Seattle down
Dude... this is a Rhodester article, gimme a break... and do you need to put her long shilly quotes IN the blog? We're all aware she shills weekly in the 'Times... no need to throw it up here dude...
"We have a combination of things that create a housing shortage," he said. "We have positive job growth, personal-income growth and increasing population. Coupled with that, we have real barriers to growth — not much flat, dry ground to build on and growth management, which constricts supply."
Duuuude, come on! Do we have to sift through this nonesense again and again? Doh! You know what you can do with that bloviating? Put on your BS glasses and read the writing on the wall...
Loose lending standards
artificially low interest rates
Seattle's ungodly rate of neg-am/i.o.s over the past 5 years
Psychology!!!
"We have positive job growth,"
Yup. Just like Denver (*pop*), Phoenix (*pop*) and Miami (*pop*)!
"...personal-income growth..."
Actually, once you adjust for inflation, that's not true, but hey...even if it were true, it hasn't stopped Denver,
Phoenix, or Las Vegas (*pop*)!
"...and increasing population."
Haven't we heard this somewhere before?
Ah well, at least we can look at Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Miami, and give thanks that they're not like us!
"Coupled with that, we have real barriers to growth — not much flat, dry ground to build on and growth management, which constricts supply."
Just like San Francisco! Boy...it's a good thing that their forclosure rate isn't skyrocketing....(This must be a fluke, right?)
All I have to say, is that I'm glad that Seattle is so damn special. Aren't you?
But if your only basis for discounting it is "dude, this is a Rhodester article" then that is pretty sad, and you have zero credibility.
hahaha... you're right? I just throw stuff on a blog with an psuedo-anonymous tag... but I've never claimed to be anything more... Lizzy Rhodes is a cherry-picker and not once has she ever addressed the rates of ARM/i.o.'s that's proliferated worse than nukes under the Bush administration... NOT ONCE!!!
Rhodester's a shill-joke, super-cheerleader masquerading as a housing news journalist... who's fronting for an overloaded RE section that fuels a good chunk of the pie of the Times' advertising revenues.
Take with a boulder of salt, especially consider she only interviews folks in the industry and never any economists or people who actually know what the hell they're talking about.
Inventory is trending up as well
Right oh!!!
Since Portland has even more austere growth/sprawl zoning laws this flies in the face of the following ridiculous notion pointed out by the bubble booster Rhodester's article for Seattle's temporarily low foreclosure rates..
we have real barriers to growth — not much flat, dry ground to build on and growth management, which constricts supply
pfft... get another day job, Rich Bennion, VP of rez-lening HomeStreet, aka loan shark in a suit...
Check out this howler!!!
Realtors: slight slump, not bust
Oh David Lereah! Have you and Karl Rove been dippin' into the same bowl of Kool-Aid lately?
Expanding inventories will depress prices in both new and existing homes but NAR is still predicting the median price of an existing, single-family home will increase 1.9 percent this year to $223,700 and 1.7 percent next year to $227,500.
Oh dear lord, for an 'economist' I'm surprised good ole' Dave doesn't understand derivitives... A rock thrown into the air may be higher than it was a few seconds ago, but the rate of acceleration is now, squarely DOWN!!!
Welcome to gravity NAR.. that and of course no mention of the 2 Trillion dollars in mortgages set to reset in 2007.
Suicide loans and toxic mortgages, the deformed stepchild the NAR wants to keep locked up in the back bedroom..
Lizzy Rhodes is a cherry-picker and not once has she ever addressed the rates of ARM/i.o.'s...
Now let's be fair... She has so addressed that once. There's no need to worry, because we can all just "increase [our] income and keep the house."
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