A California city saw a decent decline in foreclosures last year, but that wasn’t the case in Las Vegas.
During 2009, one out of every eight housing units in Las Vegas faced a foreclosure filing — the highest rate of any metropolitan statistical area — according to RealtyTrac.com. A total of 94,862 Sin City properties faced foreclosure last year, 41 percent higher than in 2008.
The situation wasn’t much better in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., area — where every eight properties also faced a filing. Full-year filings climbed just 4 percent, however, to 42,734 during 2009.
RealtyTrac based its findings on data from 2,200 U.S. counties that account for more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. Totals reflect notices-of-default and Lis Pendens; notices-of-trustee-sale and notices-of-foreclosure-sale; and real-estate-owned properties.
Merced, Calif.’s, foreclosure for each 10 properties placed it in the No. 3 spot. Merced’s 8,389 foreclosures edged up just slightly from 2008.
No. 4 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., had a foreclosure filed on every 11 housing units. The area had 126,376 foreclosures last year, about 13 percent more than the previous year.
“There is evidence that we’re entering a new wave of foreclosures, driven more by unemployment and economic hardship than what we’ve seen over the past few years,” RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James J. Saccacio said in the report. “Areas like Provo, Utah, Fayetteville, Ark., Portland, Ore., and Rockford, Ill., all posted foreclosure rates above the U.S. average in 2009. And markets like Honolulu, Minneapolis and Seattle saw foreclosure activity increase at more than twice the national pace over the past 12 months.”
But Stockton, Calif., which was No. 5 with one filing for each 12 housing units, saw annual foreclosure filings fall 8 percent to 19,540 during 2009.
Nine areas in California were among the worst 20, while Florida had eight.
In Burlington-South Burlington, Vt., only one-in-1,972 properties faced a foreclosure filing in 2009 — lower than any other area. Just 45 foreclosures were filed in the area last year, about a 10 percent increase from 2008.
