SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Seattle leads major metros in foreclosure increase
Jul 28, 2011, 9:43 AM | Updated: Mar 4, 2016, 5:59 am
By ALEX VEIGA
AP Real Estate Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas are seeing a sharp drop in foreclosure activity but the Seattle metro area showed the greatest increase, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc., reported today.
Seattle posted a 10 percent jump versus the same period last year. One in every 98 households got a foreclosure-related notice.
Job loss, rather than time-bomb mortgages resetting to higher payments, has become the main driver behind rising foreclosures.
The Seattle metropolitan area’s unemployment rate stood at 9.2 at the beginning of the year, but it has eased of late, sliding to 8.5 percent in May.
Still, the metro area has seen the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits due to large-scale layoffs increase this year. In the first quarter, it was ranked 8th highest on the basis of initial unemployment claimants due to layoffs, up from 15th a year earlier.
“The lag time between job loss and foreclosure is a little longer than it is in a normal cycle,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “We could be seeing a fallout from job losses there over the last year or two.”
Realty Trac tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions – warnings that can lead up to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.
In the first half of this year, 84 percent of metropolitan areas with a population of at least 200,000 saw their foreclosure rate drop versus the same period last year as banks take longer to move against homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments.
All told, foreclosure activity declined in 178 of the country’s 211 largest metropolitan areas during the first six months of the year.
California, Nevada and Arizona, among the states most affected by the housing bust and ensuing foreclosure crisis, account for the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rate for the first six months of the year.
Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., registered the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, with one in every 19 households receiving a foreclosure-related notice – nearly six times the national average. But the metropolitan area’s foreclosure activity fell 17.9 percent from the first six months of last year.
