Rise in Chattanooga Area Foreclosures this Summer

The rising trend of foreclosures this summer has set a record in the Chattanooga area. However, RealtyTrac Inc., analyzed that their rate of notices for local default including repossessions accounted for only one-half of the national figures during the 3rd quarter of this year. At least, one out of every 235 properties in Chattanooga metro went through foreclosure since July till September according to the estimation of the RealtyTrac.

There were at least one among every 119 homes in Georgia that faced loan defaults or repossessions from the banks within the July-September duration. The Peach State stood 7th in the ranking for the number of homes being foreclosed. This year’s foreclosures in the Chattanooga were 12% more than last year’s figure and it numbered to 971 foreclosures. However, the rate of foreclosures in Chattanooga remained less than half compared to the other metros in the RealtyTrac list. Among the top 10 scorers like California, Nevada and Florida in terms of foreclosures Chattanooga was no where with a minimal 1/5th foreclosure rate.

According to Nickie Schwartzkopf who is a broker a Realtor and also the president of Chattanooga Association of Realtors, “We never had that big upswing in prices that many other areas did in the past, and that turned out to be a blessing for us in Chattanooga. Home buyers here didn’t get as many of the loans that were questionable.”

With the rising rate of unemployed people in the metro of Chattanooga the foreclosures figure will rise according to Schwartzkopf. She further stressed that, “We have not bottomed out yet. Over the past year, some of the lenders held back on some of the foreclosures and allowed people to try to restructure their loans. But now it’s coming to the point for a lot of people that it is going to involve more foreclosures.” approximately 400 homes will be foreclosed. According to Ms. McLean, a mortgage lender, “We’re still in an unprecedented time, but I hope we’ve hit — or soon will hit — the bottom.”

According to Randy Durham, who is a broker for Keller Williams Realty and president-elect of the Chattanooga Association of Realtors, “as high as I’ve ever seen it. That does tend to hurt the average home seller because of the competition with these foreclosed homes on the market.” In the previous month there were at least 7% of the homes among the Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service, that faced foreclosures and at least 1.7% faced short sales and the some homes were sold below their original price just to avoid foreclosures.

Chief Executive of RealtyTrac James Saccacio commented that, “While toxic subprime mortgages drove much of that first wave of foreclosures, high unemployment and exotic Alt-A Option Adjustable Rate Mortgages are spreading the foreclosure flood to more metro areas in 2009.”

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