National Foreclosure Inventory Down Slightly This Month

Posted in Foreclosure, August 31st, 2006 |

As of last month, an industry group reported that there were 88,093 foreclosed residential properties available for sale in the United States.

That figure shows a decrease of 7 percent from the amount of foreclosed residential properties available for sale in January. Also, the amount of new foreclosures listed for sale in February (which was 21,402) dropped by 10.8 percent from the prior month.

February marks the second consecutive month of declining new residential foreclosure rates in the United States. However, a year-to-year comparison of new foreclosures shows a 9-percent increase in the number of listings in February 2006 than in February 2005.

What does this mean? It’s important to realize that foreclosure inventory numbers in February are often low. Legal filings in December tend to drop off around the holidays, and this reduces the amount of foreclosures available in January and February. So while this probably does not mean the foreclosure market is slowing down in a general sense, it does mean that locating a great property available at foreclosure sale may be a more valuable find at this time of the year than at others. It could also mean higher demand, but that is largely dependent on the location of the property.

In other words, this development should not affect your overall ability to find foreclosure property, except in high demand areas with a high demand market, such as urban areas.

In fact, in the big picture, the foreclosure market is only growing. If new foreclosures in 2006 continue to track 9 percent higher than in 2005 (the current rate of expansion), the country could see much higher inventory levels than it has in recent years.

-John Grady