Tri-Cities sees more 2017 foreclosure sales than before recession

There was a time when the first words out of a prospective buyer’s mouth when they linked up with a Realtor was “what kind of foreclosures are out there?”  Those days are gone, but there’s still an active foreclosure market. In fact, there were more foreclosure sales in the Tri-Cities region last year than there were in 2008 – the year before the Great Recession hit the local economy.

According to Attom Data Solution’s Year-end Foreclosure Report foreclosures hit a 12 year low in 2017. That not the case here in the Tri-Cities region. According to Attom’s report, there were 610 foreclosure sales in the Tri-Cities region last year. That’s 9% of all residential resales that year and a decrease from 2016 in all but two local markets. There were four more in Bristol VA and two more in Scott County.

Compared to the peak foreclosure sales years of 2010 and 2011 last year’s foreclosure sales were down a little more than 50%.

But looking back to some pre-recession years last year’s NE Tenn. total was 27 more than 2008 and 222 more than the 2007 total.

Sullivan and Washington counties accounted for the increase in Northeast TN while all of the Southwest VA jurisdictions saw increases.

Attom’s report shows 676,535 properties with foreclosure filings in 2017 represented 0.51% of all U.S. housing units, down from 0.70 percent in 2016 and down from a peak of 2.23% in 2010 to the lowest level since 2005. The share is about the same here when compared to total households.

The report also includes new data for 2017, when there were 64,651 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings, up 1% from the previous month but still down 25% from a year ago — the 27th consecutive month with a year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity.

“Thanks to a housing boom driven primarily by a scarcity of supply, which has helped to limit home purchases to the most highly qualified — and low-risk — borrowers, the U.S. housing market has the luxury of playing a version of foreclosure limbo in which it searches for how low foreclosures can go,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at Attom Data Solutions.