Foreclosures in state jumped 26% in 2007
Posted on Saturday, February 9, 2008
The number of Arkansas homes in some stage of foreclosure jumped 26. 44 percent last year, well below the national rate, according to records of a company that tracks and sells the information.
But the number more than doubled in three Arkansas counties in 2007 compared with 2006, RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, Calif., states in its 2007 U. S. Foreclosure Market Report.
RealtyTrac has a database of more than 1 million U. S. properties in all phases of foreclosure, including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. It provides data on national, state and county levels.
Arkansas ranked 26 th nationwide last year with 14, 310 foreclosures, up from 11, 318 filed in 2006. Those filings were on 6, 406 properties. Arkansas’ foreclosure rate was 0. 51 percent, RealtyTrac reports.
While the state fared better than much of the nation in RealtyTrac’s report, officials in some counties dispute the company’s figures and say filings were actually down last year.
The Arkansas county with the most foreclosures in 2007 was Pulaski County with 3, 528, up 8 percent from 3, 258 foreclosures in 2006, RealtyTrac reported. But Benton, Washington and Garland counties had much larger percentage increases.
Those four counties are the homes of Little Rock, Rogers, Fayetteville and Hot Springs, respectively.
Benton County saw a 105 percent increase in foreclosures, from 905 in 2006 to 1, 855 last year. Washington County’s increased 108 percent, from 567 to 1, 177.
Garland County reported the biggest rate increase — 135 percent — from 2006 ’s total of 362 to 849 in 2007.
RealtyTrac chief executive officer James J. Saccacio said in a news release that because its numbers include properties that may only be in default, many foreclosures it counted in the fourth quarter of 2007 may not enter the legal foreclosure system in the respective counties until this year.
Officials in Benton, Washington and Garland counties say they can’t verify RealtyTrak’s data because they either can’t or are not required to track foreclosure filings.
“I really thought there would be more in 2007,” Brenda DeShields, Benton County’s circuit clerk, said Tuesday. “In actuality the numbers were down.” She said only 509 foreclosures were filed in 2007 in Benton County, compared with 541 in 2006.
The difference between DeShields’ numbers and those provided by RealtyTrac can be attributed to that company’s including nonjudicial foreclosures, which Benton County did not track in 2007, DeShields said.
“It wasn’t required and until this year when they were included in civil court filings, there wasn’t a way to track them,” she said.
Arkansas law, along with many other states, allows for judicial and nonjudicial foreclosure. In judicial foreclosures, the sale of the property is administered by the court system. In nonjudicial foreclosure in 2007, the sale of the property was handled by an appointed trustee and filed with the real estate records but not the court system.
As of Jan. 1, a change to Arkansas law requires nonjudicial foreclosures to be filed through the court system so counties with appropriate computer systems and software can begin tracking both types.
Kristie Womble, chief deputy clerk for Garland County’s Office of the Circuit Clerk, said the county cannot track the number of either judicial or nonjudicial foreclosures. The computer system can track court filings by number and name only, so each court filing would have to be hand-sorted to count the number of foreclosures, she said.
“We have an old computer system. There is just no way for us to track that,” Womble said Wednesday. “But we are about to get a new computer system. Maybe that will let us track it.” Steve Sipes, circuit court administrator for the Pulaski County and Circuit Clerk’s office, said the county recorded 142 judicial foreclosures in 2007, an increase of 4. 41 percent from the 136 filed in 2006.
Most foreclosures have been filed as nonjudicial over the past few years, Sipes said. Between 90 percent and 95 percent of Pulaski County foreclosures are filed as nonjudicial, he said.
Washington County Circuit Clerk Bette Stamps said her computer system has no way to easily track how many foreclosures were filed in 2007.
Joe Beard, a research analyst with the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts in Little Rock, said the office does not request the number of foreclosures from individual counties, so most do not track that information.
“It is not uploaded into the general database,” he said. “Maybe we can track it after 2010. That’s when the administrative office is supposed to start getting all court data from every county.” Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said she was not certain how reliable RealtyTrac’s numbers are or how they compile them.
“But as far as seeing what numbers are out there easily — they are it. You could go gather the information yourself or you can use RealtyTrac,” she said Friday.
In 2006, the U. S. foreclosure rate climbed to a five-year high. It has since surged to the loftiest level since at least World War II, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association.
RealtyTrac’s 2007 report shows 2, 203, 295 foreclosure filings nationwide on 1, 285, 873 properties, up 75 percent from 2006. The report also shows that more than 1 percent of all U. S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year, up from 0. 58 percent in 2006.
Foreclosure filings could swell in 2008, particularly as large numbers of adjustablerate mortgages are due to reset to higher rates, and payments, during the first half of the year, Carl Steidtmann, chief economist for Deloitte Research, a division of audit, consulting, financial advisory company Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu of Sweden, said in January. ARMs feature low introductory rates that reset to much higher ones, usually after two years, and adjust every six months or so after that. When they adjust, a monthly payment on a $ 300, 000 mortgage can increase by $ 600 or more, according to CNNMoney. com. Steidtmann said more than $ 120 billion in adjustable-rate mortgages will reset to higher interest rates in March, the most since January 2007. Some of those reset mortgages will go into default and, ultimately, into foreclosure, he said.
To contact this reporter: sroberts@arkansasonline. com Information for this article was contributed by Bob Ivry and Jody Shenn of Bloomberg News.
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