Foreclosures down in Metro Atlanta




Information provided by Data Intelligence Corporation

  The chart above shows data for the metropolitan Atlanta area.  It charts the number of properties involved in foreclosure notices; the number of foreclosures; and the number of bank-owned sales. 

As you can see, the number of foreclosure notices as well as the number of foreclosures is down dramatically from a high of 12,739 and 6,097, respectively, compared to September of last year.  


There are some interesting facts that one can discern from this information.  Fewer than 8% of the homes that received notices are actually being foreclosed on, currently.  September's numbers showed closer to 50% of homes receiving foreclosure notices being foreclosed.  This means that banks may be entertaining more short sale requests or requests for modification.  Whichever is actually taking place, the flood of foreclosures has slowed.

The interpretation by some experts is that there remains a large "shadow inventory" (which is evidenced by the large number of pre-foreclosures) and the banks and the government have figured out a safe number of homes that can be released into inventory without flooding the market and further depressing prices.

The correlation between the value of the properties that received the foreclosure notices vs. the value of the bank owned sales is interesting as well.  This seems to indicate that, when properties are foreclosed, they subsequently sell for less than 1/2 of the original unpaid mortgage.  This will have a large, negative impact on traditional sales, but will also be tremendously beneficial to current buyers.

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