Rock County Foreclosure: An Overview
Posted in General, June 30th, 2009
Though there has been a steep rise in the foreclosures, however, with an article posted on USA Today, it seems as if foreclosure in Rock County has worsened.
Immense publicity has let down the economic officials. Moreover, the shut down of the General Motors plant has taken the entire nation by rage. This incident has also left several people jobless, the highest number being in the Rock County.
Actually, with faulty information, it could be tough to gain the lost reputation. This was reflected in the case of Rock County. Not a single buyer turned up; when about six foreclosed homes were put on an auction, on a Wednesday morning at the Rock County courthouse.
No doubt, the news of Rock County foreclosures was no more upfront. However, with a single article posted on USA Today raked up the issue once again. To this, the Vice President of Government Relations, Don Cunningham remarked, “We certainly did see the article and did have some questions about the numbers that they were using for that”.
Rock County was the leader in foreclosures in the nation; and a newspaper graphic backed the fact. The data for which was collected by RealtyTrac, a popular company. However, this particular company revealed to WISC TV that the data used for the graphic was imperfect and partial.
Cunningham said, “”Certainly it will make our job a little bit more difficult, but we’re out there every day trying to make it happen”.
Foreclosure rates play a pivotal role in inviting more businesses according to economists. In fact, this insight could turn as a great hope as rightly stated by Doug Loon, the representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Loon said, “”It’s an economic indicator. It could also say that there’s plenty of housing stock for your future employees at an affordable rate. But it does say there’s been a downturn in the economy. You look at the unemployment numbers and you can see that”.
Obviously, businesses would not consider the newspaper article to make significant decisions. Moreover, the data hardly projects the bigger picture of a concern. Still, it could be possibly said that a besieged community is rarely influenced by the positive perception.
To this, Don Cunnigham remarked, “Economic development and site location planners look at all sorts of data. They’re going to look at the negative and they’re going to look at the positive.”
The court clerks have submitted a detailed summary depicting the number of closures in Rock County, which is about 112 monthly, as calculated from January to April, 2009. The figure reveals a growth of nearly 46%, which accounts to an increase of 77 closures in a month as against 2008.
However, when compared to the actual graphic in the USA Today, it showed an average of 8.08 foreclosures in a month against the year 2008. This shows that the data was imperfect leading to nearly 1397% increase, as reported in the article.
