Foreclosure Crisis Falling and Rising in Major Cities

ForeclosureListings.com has noticed falling and rising trends in foreclosures in recent months. Why? When the supply of homes outweighs the demand for them, the prices shrink. When the values are attractive enough to investors with enough money to withstand the smaller return on the investment, the supply is reduced and the prices sustain at a present level until the next surge of depressed properties are on the market available at discounted prices.

This cycle of surges of many available discounted homes in foreclosure and the purchasing of them continues similar to the stop-and-go of traffic at the change of lights from red to green and back.

ForeclosureListings reports that Phoenix, Arizona, is the top city in foreclosure rates. But since March of 2011, the number of foreclosure listings is falling in a huge proportion, reflecting the surges of foreclosed properties on the market after months of processing the paperwork and verifying information:
March: 1.168 listings
April: 1.081 (-7.45%)
May: 980 (-9.34%).

Miami, one of the largest cities in Florida, has also registered a fall of listings for this time period:
March: 600 listings
April: 516 (-14%)
May: 404 (-21.7%).

Orlando and Fort Lauderdale also have falling numbers since March, giving the impression that Florida is leaving the crisis. But the foreclosure slowdown is largely the result of massive delays in processing foreclosures and not the result of a housing recovery. The foreclosure slowdown is being received apathetically; banks continue to stall home repossessions, and several of Florida’s major foreclosure processing law firms left the business.

Atlanta, the capital city of Georgia, was only in the 6th position in the top10 of foreclosure listings in March. The following months were only of rising numbers:
March: 387 listings
April: 499 (+28.9%)
May: 635 (+27.2%).

Another example of a rising foreclosure situation is Aurora, one of the top cities in Colorado. Aurora is a place with over twice as many foreclosure listings as Atlanta, Georgia:
March: 1092 listings
April: 1152 (+5.49%)
May: 1365 (+18.8%).

Tucson, another big city in Arizona, is also showing similar numbers, contrary to Phoenix:
March: 424 listings
April: 437 (+3.06%)
May: 488 (+11.6%).

Foreclosures account for around 40 percent of total home sales in Tucson now. Tucson was one of the cities hit hard and fast at the beginning of the housing meltdown, and will likely be one of the first to bottom out and rebound.

A buyer can pay $325 per month for a two-bedroom home if they can get approved for financing, for example, due to the depressed prices that have leveled the number of homes that have already been processed. This indicates a swing in the trend from foreclosures to purchases.