2009 Was The Year of Foreclosure in Alameda and Nation

RealtyTrac, released its Year-End 2009 Foreclosure Market Report™, which reported a record 2.8 million U.S properties with foreclosure filings in 2009. The report shows a total of 3,957,643 foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 2,824,674 U.S. properties in 2009, a 21 percent increase in total properties from 2008 and a 120 percent increase in total properties from 2007.

The report also shows that 2.21 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 45) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 1.84 percent in 2008, 1.03 percent in 2007 and 0.58 percent in 2006.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 349,519 U.S. properties in December, a 14 percent jump from the previous month and a 15 percent increase from December 2008 — when a similar monthly jump in foreclosure activity occurred. Despite the increase in December, foreclosure activity in the fourth quarter decreased 7 percent from the third quarter, although it was still up 18 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008.

In Alameda, RealtyTrac currently reports 94 pre-foreclosures, 86 auction properties, and 82 banked owned properties. In 2009, Alameda had 74 foreclose sales and 36 short sales, these 110 sales accounted for 22 percent of the sales on the Island.

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Nevada, Arizona, Florida post top state foreclosure rates in 2009 with more than 10 percent of Nevada housing units received at least one foreclosure filing in 2009, giving it the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate for the third consecutive year.

Nevada foreclosure activity in December increased 27 percent from the previous month but was still down 22 percent from December 2008. Fourth quarter foreclosure activity in Nevada was down 37 percent from the previous quarter thanks to substantial decreases in October and November.

Arizona registered the nation’s second highest state foreclosure rate in 2009, with more than 6 percent of its housing units receiving at least one foreclosure filing during the year, and Florida registered the nation’s third highest foreclosure rate, with 5.93 percent of its housing units receiving at least one foreclosure filing during the year.
Four states accounted for more than 50 percent of the nation’s 2009 total, with more than 1.4 million properties receiving a foreclosure filing in our own California, Florida, Arizona and Illinois combined.

A total of 632,573 California properties received a foreclosure filing in 2009, the nation’s largest state foreclosure activity total and an increase of nearly 21 percent from 2008. After four straight month-over-month declines, California foreclosure activity in December increased nearly 9 percent from the previous month, but the state’s fourth quarter foreclosure activity was still down 17 percent from the previous quarter.

Although Alameda has not had numbers close to the State averages, we have seen an increase in distressed activity. Given the RealtyTrac numbers for Alameda there appears to be even more distressed sales on the horizon.