Coweta Foreclosures Tower above USA Average
Thursday, August 21st, 2008While foreclosures across the nation are skyrocketing, foreclosures in Coweta are towering above the USA average. Going by advertisements inserted in Times-Herald the tendency of staggering increases is noticeable. From 70 in July 2007 it jumped to 136 in July 2008 marking a hike of 94%. During this period the national increase was by 55%. It calculated to a national foreclosure rate of 1:464 in July.
Coweta figures show that since May 2008 the foreclosure rate is 1:332 – far above the national rate. The insertions in the Times-Herald about foreclosed houses have been steadily but surely increasing. From July to August 2007 the numbers shot up from 70 to 112 respectively. It touched a high peak of 156 in January 2008. For August 2008 there have been 137 advertisements as against 112 in August 2007.
Dr. William Joey Smith of West Georgia University said that hitherto the predictions that the housing market would ‘bottom out’ months ago were wrong. None will deny that the banks are in good shape. This has led to rethinking that it might take a much longer time for the foreclosure crisis to stabilize. Contrary to anticipations the situation has worsened in many places than before.
Coweta County is not alone in its suffering. In Troup County the foreclosure rate is 1:915. In Merewether and Fayette it is 1:205 and 1:532 respectively. It is worse in Carroll County where the foreclosure rate is 1:270. In Fulton County it is higher still with the foreclosure rate being 1:156.
Mark Manis of Wheeler’s Building Supply remarks that the housing market is very tough. Recently Wheeler’s Building slipped into bankruptcy earlier in 2008 but since then it has undergone a change and resurfaced keeping the same name. Foreclosures so far have concentrated in certain pockets of metro Atlanta. There are indications that it is spreading to other parts of North Georgia and that is not good news at all. The road ahead is “fraught with peril.”
Realtor Frank Barron of Lindsey’s Inc in Newnan admits that he made a mistake by saying at one stage that the market had “hit the bottom”. He does not think that the bottom has been reached as yet but perhaps the tendency is that the market is slowly edging towards it. The sales figure of July makes him optimistic. It is much better than what it was previously. By late 2009 and 2010 it seems the situation will take a positive turn.
