There were 10,357 foreclosure notices published in February for the 13-county Metro Atlanta area, up 27 percent from January and 34 percent from February 2009.
Alpharetta-based Equity Depot released the numbers in a report today, according to a post by Henry Unger in his “The Biz Beat” on the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Web site.
I guess the brief slowing in January’s numbers was the calm before the continuing of the storm that is devastating neighborhoods across Atlanta.
The number of homes published this month for the foreclosure sale in February dropped in Metro Atlanta. The 8,181 notices are down 3 percent from notices published in January last year and 21 percent below the number of notices published in December.
The drop was the first in 14 months according to Alpharetta based Equity Depot, a company that tracks foreclosure notices published each month across the country.
Barry Bramlett, president of Equity Depot, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that he was hesitant to say hat things were turning around until he saw better results from one quarter to the next, not month to month.
A record number of homes were threatened with foreclosure last year and economists expect the problems to get worse before they get better. According to a report published by RealtyTrac Inc, 2.8 million homes were threatened with foreclosure in 2009. The company projects that number could climb to between 3 million and 3.5 million homes this year.
Many homes that might have been pulled from foreclosure lists in efforts by the Federal government and states to help troubled homeowners. But banks have been slow to negotiate mortgage modifications, and have been even slower to make them permanent.
One way to stop foreclosure proceedings on your home is to file bankruptcy. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can give you time to make up arrears and delinquent payments on your mortgage.
Metro Atlanta saw a 10 percent increase in foreclosures from November and a 77 percent increase over last December, according to numbers gather by Equity Depot. The company says that 10,341 foreclosure notices were published in the 13-county Atlanta metro area. That number brought the year-end number to a record shattering 117,107 foreclosure notices published this year.
Barry Bramlett, president of Equity Depot, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that fewer residential properties were involved in the December notices and that commercial real estate, including hotels, office space and manufacturing sites, are on the rise.
“Maybe we have reached the apex, but it is still unbelievable, in my opinion,” Bramlett said when describing the numbers.
The Obama Administration has promised that homeowners who need help staying in their homes, will get the help through mortgage modifications, but few have seen this help in the year since plans were announced.
Bankruptcy filings continue to climb as people look for any way possible to keep their home and stop foreclosures.
Many homeowners struggling to make the payments on their mortgage were promised help from President Barack Obama’s Making Home Affordable program, but only 20 percent of those eligible for the program have begun trial modifications on their home loans, according to information released by the Treasury Department.
Once the homeowner is in the trial modification, they must stay current on their new mortgage payment for three months they can apply to turn the trial into a permanent modification.
A story about the issue in the Wall Street Journal, one mortgage servicing company in has 39,000 borrowers who are up to date on their trial payments, but only around 500 have received permanent modifications. It almost seems the pace is slower than getting the modification in the first place.
My guess is that many of these homeowners are facing collection calls and foreclosure notices waiting to get a trial modification on their mortgage.
I don’t think that bankruptcy would be right for all of these homeowners fighting to keep their homes, but it could be a solution that is much quicker and easier than this drawn out process that has no guarantee of success.
Filing bankruptcy will stop foreclosure on your home. It will clear some of your debts and might help to free up some income that could then be used to make the payments on your home.
Bankruptcy may sound like a drastic step, and it may be. But it helps to stop creditors from harassing you for payments you can’t make. It can give you the help you need to start your life fresh, free of the obligations that have you trapped in a downward spiral.
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Economists are predicting that the unemployment rate will drop dramatically in Atlanta in by the second quarter of 2010. I would like to think they know what they are talking about, but I recently read that foreclosures on retail properties and commercial developments are on the rise.
Defaults on these loans will affect the ability of other businesses in the area to secure financing in order to keep growing, which may result in slower recovery than expected. I think that the recovery should be on the way, but if you are scraping by now thinking that you can wait until the recovery in summer next year, you need to prepare for the possibility that you will have to declare bankruptcy.
Come in for a free evaluation of your current situation and see if bankruptcy can help you get your debt under control. It may seem like a drastic step, but you must remember that bankrupcty is not a personal failure. Bankruptcy allows you to clear the burden that the is causing you stress and help you start fresh with the assets you need to begin a life without debt.
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I read an article on Forbes.com yesterday written by Stephane Fitch that provides some good information for those who are seeking to lower their house payment in order to stay in their home.
Now some may say that the Making Home Affordable program is a waste of taxpayer money, but the since it is out there, people in need should take advantage.
The first thing you have to know if you want to participate is what percentage of your gross monthly income goes toward paying your house payment. The number includes payments on the principal, interest, taxes and insurance on your home. If it isn’t greater than 31 percent, you are out of luck and need to find another way to ease your financial burden. Maybe filing bankruptcy will help?
If you made it through the first test, then you have to find out if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage holders, own your mortgage. You can do this by visiting the Web sites of each lender and enter information about your home.
Once that is determined, get ready for the negotiations with the bank that is servicing your mortgage. While Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac own your mortgage, they count on the banks that service the mortgages to handle the paperwork involved in the process and decide which homeowners qualify.
Each case will be treated differently. If your house payment is more than 31 percent of your monthly income, the bank will use other costs that you have to determine if you can still make the payment if the interest rate is lowered.
You have to already be behind on payments to be considered by most banks. They will take into consideration how much savings you have, income prospects over the next nine months to one year, and other monthly expenses that you incur.
It isn’t likely that they are going to approve a modification if you are spending a large percentage of your income on health club memberships and private school tuition. It will be a subjective and sometimes humiliating look at your financial situation.
Of course, a report in the Wall Street Journal today says that some lenders are starting to write off principal when modifying troubled mortgages. It says that 10 percent of the modifications approved in the second quarter of this year involved principal reduction.
What you have to remember is that there are lots of options out there. It is also important to remember that these are business transactions. You have every right to use all the tools and programs available to you to save your home. And remember, you can still file bankruptcy to prevent foreclosure on your home.
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Around 50 members of Rainbow PUSH Coalition including the Rev. Jesse Jackson held a prayer vigil on the steps of the Federal Reserve bank in Atlanta yesterday.
Foreclosure rates in July were up 32 percent over last year’s numbers, according to RealtyTrac a California based firm that tracks foreclosures nationwide.
The group complains that taxpayers are footing the bill to rescue banks that are still foreclosing on homes in record numbers. Jackson complained to the Atlanta Journal Constitution that “we are watering the leaves, not the roots of the economy.”
Rev. Jackson may be right. Homeowners who are in danger of losing their home shouldn’t feel trapped or resigned. They should find an Atlanta bankruptcy attorney and plot a course to stop the foreclosure proceedings on their home.
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A report issued by the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that 1 in 8 Georgia homeowners was delinquent or in foreclosure in the last three months of 2008.
The association said that 223,000 Georgia homeowners behind on mortgage payments or already in foreclosure was a 16 percent increase from the numbers for the third quarter.
The report also said that homeowners with subprime mortgages were more likely to be having trouble, with roughly 35 percent of Georgia residents with those types of loans either delinquent of in foreclosure.
With unemployment rates continuing to climb, Georgia’s economic woes are likely to get worse before they get better.
Bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending in December 2008 rose more than 20 percent across Georgia. In the Northern District of Georgia Bankruptcy Court, which serves Atlanta metro, the number of bankruptcies filed reached 40,122, up 24.1 percent from the 32,320 cases filed in 2007.
As a bankruptcy law firm, we recommend that those in danger of losing their home to foreclosure seek advice about a possible bankruptcy filing as soon as possible. Georgia law allows for the foreclosure on your house to go through relatively quickly with little notice to you.
Getting the advice of an experienced Atlanta bankruptcy lawyer can help you keep your home.
The Atlanta area continues to make it into top 10 lists, coming in number 8 on the Forbes.com list of the 10 worst housing markets in the United States.
According to the report, prices in the housing market in the Atlanta area were last this low in June 2002, and were 12.14 percent lower than the same time last year.
Home-saving experts with the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) say that the thousands of Georgians that have been attending seminars it has been holding around Atlanta could benefit from a program recently announced by President Barack Obama that will help homeowners refinance their mortgages.
Critics say that the plan is too little, too late, and mounting job losses will leave those without a steady income without a way to qualify for new loans aimed at keeping them in their homes.
Richard King, a home-saving specialist in the NACA’s Decatur office told the Atlanta Journal Consitution that “the plan isn’t perfect but it is a good start.”
He went on to say it was the first government effort aimed at helping distresses homeowners.
Lenders participate in the plan announced by the President on a voluntary basis. Housing advocates have said that there is no incentive for lenders to work with homeowners to create a solution that is affordable.
President Obama said that on top of the plan announced to aid homeowners, he wants to see legislation passed that will allow bankrutpcy judges to modify mortgages.
David Kittle, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, a national industry group, is quoted in the Dallas Morning News as saying that his group was “disappointed to see the President endorse bankruptcy as an option to help delinquent borrowers.”
Incentives for lenders that participate are built into the administration’s plan to help homeowners, but there is no punishment if they choose not to negotiate, according to critics of the mortgage lending industry.
“This is the stick part, this isn’t the carrot part,” said Samuel Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute, which studies bankruptcy issues. “The bankruptcy judge is the stick.”
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