By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Central Texas foreclosure postings for the Oct. 6 auction hit their highest level since 2001, and the numbers could go higher still, experts say.
Foreclosure Listing Service Inc. said 1,481 properties were posted in Travis, Williamson, Hays and Bastrop counties, 72 percent higher than for the October 2008 auction.
Postings were up 79 percent in Travis County, 66 percent in Williamson, 80 percent in Hays and 39 percent in Bastrop.
Through October, nearly 11,600 properties in Central Texas — most of them homes — have been posted for foreclosure, 58 percent higher than in the same period of 2008, according to Foreclosure Listing Service, an Addison company that tracks foreclosure postings in several Texas cities.
In February, George Roddy Sr., the company’s president, said he thought foreclosures had peaked in Central Texas, although at high levels, but noted that future job losses were a big unknown that could change his prediction.
Since then, Austin’s job market has weakened, with unemployment at 7.2 percent last month and the annual job loss rate hitting a six-year high of 0.9 percent.
“Every time we think we’ve hit the plateau, it seems to spike a little bit higher a few months later,” Bonnie Brown, the company’s vice president, said Tuesday.
Brown said the numbers are expected to remain elevated for some time.
The main reason: Through September, loans for homes posted for foreclosure in Central Texas were made, on average, in 2005, she said. Potentially troubled loans made since then, especially in 2006 and 2007, before the housing markets slowed, have yet to reach the foreclosure stage, Brown said.
In addition, various loan-modification programs designed to assist financially stressed homeowners so they can keep their homes are not helping everyone, said Hugh Parrish, a veteran Austin real estate broker at Parrish & Associates.
“Many people have applied for modifications, and some have been successful,” Parrish said. “Many others could not be salvaged” because the homeowners did not have enough income to cover even reduced monthly payments.
“We are at a point in this process that these denials ultimately result in foreclosure,” he said.
Also contributing to the spike in Central Texas are repeat postings. Some lenders carry postings for several months, even as they try to work out loan revisions with the borrower. The repeat postings protect the lender’s right to seize the property if the negotiations don’t succeed.
But even when factoring out postings filed in previous months, Central Texas still has 285 more postings this October than last, a 50 percent gain and still a significant increase, Brown said.
Brown said that despite the elevated numbers, Central Texas hasn’t been anywhere “near as impacted” as other parts of the country.
“I talked to a gentleman today from the Detroit area, and unemployment in his hometown is at 20 percent,” Brown said. ‘We’re very lucky.”
