'04 foreclosures up 24 percent (D/FW, TX)

[UpInArms]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/10350172.htm?1c

North Texas commercial foreclosures jumped 24 percent in 2004, according to a study by Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service.

There were 1,276 commercial postings filed this year in Tarrant, Dallas, Denton, Rockwall and Collin counties, up from 1,032 postings filed in all of 2003.

In the final quarter, postings were up 10 percent over 2003, increasing to 310 postings from 282, the firm said.

The year started with 327 postings filed in the first quarter, which was the first time that quarterly commercial postings topped 300 since the real estate bust of the late 1980s, said George Roddy, president of Foreclosure Listing Service.

...more...

[ckramer]

1. Texas is not even the most expensive real estate market in

the country. What's up with the Pacific West and the Northeast?

[MrUnderhill]

2. Actually more expensive than you may assume.

We looked out there a couple years ago (the in-laws are in the area). HUGE houses (though no basements) for what I considered VERY low prices (low 200's).

What you don't see on the sticker price though... is that property taxes run several times what you might be used to paying and home insurance is quite high as well.

The actual monthly payment on those 200k houses was quite a bit higher than on a much more expensive house where I was living.



Additionally... their job situation is pretty bleak in many markets. One of our DU regulars has been struggling through in that market without a job for YEARS. I can only assume he made a heroic attempt at saving in his earlier years and is quite conservative with his spending now. Admirable almost to the point of tears.

[mhr]

4. Mr Frugal Is My Middle Name - Unemployed 54 Months

Send resumes every day to no avail.

To give you an example of how badly the Dallas employment market was hit over the last 4 years, consider this chart from the Dallas Federal Reserve. Maybe the commercial foreclosures are following the unemployment trends. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

[MrUnderhill]

6. Yeah.... I've always been partial to charts/graphs myself.

;-)

Good to see you here. How have things been going otherwise?

Here's the updated chart:


Some improvement... but at this rate... y'all will be back up to the pre-Bush highs... right around the time he leaves office.

PS... "Mr Frugal" doesn't start with an "H".

[mhr]

11. Thanks For The Updated Chart - As All Can See Dallas Is Still Hurting

As for me, in my alphabet h and f have always been interchangeable.

Otherwise, I am hanging on and continue to send those resumes.

Who knows things might swing my way - I just no longer count on it.

[rainbow4321]

8. Local college kids....

Big problem here, too, is that with the slumping economy, the parents who once thought about sending their kids off to a university are now sending them to Collin County Community College <and probably the same holds true down in Dallas County>. So THEY are bursting at the seams..which then puts a strain on things like financial aid since they starting having a large influx of students needing the $$. While there may have been enough to go around with a normal economy/enrollment, it is not enough for the increased number of kids trying to go there now. It just gets messier and messier as time goes on....

[rainbow4321]

10. Property taxes and other stuff add up....

Stuff like electricity, gas, etc all add up... I say that cuz a friend moved here from the West Coast and while housing is cheaper <minus the property tax issue> she is having to use her a/c <Texas summers, you know> and heat, neither of which she used alot of out in California and that alone can reach $300/month down here at peak temps, plus we don't have the public transportation system like she was used to out there so she is spending a shitload more in gas $$. I can't speak for all the areas but here in Plano, <property tax> mine is around $3400/year <compared to my family's in Oklahoma--$800/year, I think>.
Combine all these factors together, mix them with a crappy economy and lay-offs, you get a pretty bleak picture for those either UNemployed or under employed.

[David Zephyr]

3. Texas Historically Goes Through Horrific Real Estate Boom / Bust Periods

Over-development and greedy land speculation both in the Houston and Dallas markets have been a plague on homeowners there for over 50 years. In the 1980's, anyone familiar with the Houston real estate market will remember entire "planned communities" sitting half-built and with cyclone fencing around them...miles of it.

The Pacific West and the Northeast continue to have low vacancy rates for housing and greater demand than supply...plus, let's face it, the value of homes on the beautiful coasts far exceed those in the hinterlands. There's a reason why homes in Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco command high prices over homes in Little Rock, Memphis and Houston...the demand to live in the former is greater than the latter.

[Tempest]

5. This is after a 34% increase in foreclosures in 2003

Foreclosures up 34 percent in 2003
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/7261023.htm

There were 28,164 homes posted for foreclosure in Tarrant, Dallas,
Denton and Collin counties in 2003, including those listed for the Dec. 2 auction, according to figures released Thursday by the Addison-based company. In Tarrant County, 8,740 homes were posted for foreclosure this year, 30.3 percent more than the 6,710 homes posted in 2002.


And Chicago has seen a 31% increase.
http://tinyurl.com/4suny

[rainbow4321]

7. Home foeclosures just as bad...

Esp. in Collin County <north of Dallas>. The county was riding high on the hog til the dot com bubble burst and then when the rest of the economy bottomed out. House foreclosures lists come out on a Tuesday <monthly I think> and the list usually has homes of former execs on it. Used to be homes of the lower and middle class and now from what I have heard it also has alot of home $200,000 +. Nortel layed off 65,000, a third of it's workers and they are STILL chipping away. EDS is outsourcing to India. Alcatel and World Com, etc...
And for those who say that the rich execs are just getting what the middle and lower classes have been getting all along--the local economy has been slammed--it is trickling down. 5 gas stations have shut down within 2 miles of my house, cashiers are being let go, teens can't find jobs, lawn people, etc.. are being let go <1st to go when people have to start to live on a lower income>.
All this is a neon red shrub loving county, you would THINK they would have connected the dots before 11/2!!

[mhr]

9. 112,000 Telecom Workers Lost Their Jobs In 2001, 2002 Alone

In and around the North Dallas area.

I have friends that are still employed and they are expecting layoffs at Cingular and AT&T just after Christmas.

[rainbow4321]

12. Nortel to follow, also

I talked to one of their workers the other night and he can't believe there are people left to let go...they already let go around 65,000, I believe. Apparently, the next round of lay offs will be due to outsourcing.

So much for our "Telecom Corridor" going along Central Expressway. At this rate all we will have left will be empty high rise buildings!

[mhr]

13. That Pretty Much Sums Things Up Now

I live about two miles South of those towers on Central.

From what I can tell, most of the building are unoccupied.

[Deja Q]

14. In MN I've seen more 'for sale' signs up and even at the Sprawl of America

I've seen 'going out of business' signs.

Tick tock.

[teryang]

15. Texas lead the nation during the last cycle of S&L fraud

This may be the sign of bad times to come.

[DemoTex]

16. I am sooo glad I sold my Park Cities house for cash on 2/16/04!

OMG, did I ever dodge a bullet! I sold it myself, 10 months after I had taken off the market with Coldwell-Banker (it had been on the market for 12 months, since 4/2002). I got my original asking price, saved 6%+ on the reality fees, and got a contract where absolutely no inspections or fix-up were required. That was all worth over $60K.

The guy had more money than sense. Ends up, he is going to tear down our great little Austin stone prairie cottage. The neighbors are furious. It is in Northern Hills, one block south of Armstrong and Highland Park. The house was built in 1922 and totally renovated in 1995-96. The lot was .22 acres, but it did have beautiful live oaks.

[struggle4progress]

17. The New Face of Home Ownership -- in the Ownership Society.

[conflictgirl]

18. I'm glad we sold our house in DFW when we did

We sold our house in D/FW in March 2002, when we moved back to Michigan. Granted, Michigan's economy is possibly even worse than what we left in Texas. But considering that we wanted to move home to Michigan anyway, I think we chose the right time to sell. We sold our house for about 25% more than we'd purchased it for 3 years earlier, and it was only on the market for 7 weeks. I now have heard from friends who are still there that they're having trouble selling their houses for even as much as they paid for them. The real estate market there was so hot for so long - so ridiculously competitive that when we were looking to buy our house, we had other buyers beat us to signing contracts on 3 houses first and houses were selling in a week after going on the market - that the bubble was bound to pop eventually.

[intheflow]

19. Denver , CO foreclosures up 28.4% through October 2004!

Foreclosure rate 'scary'
Through October, metro area running 28.4% ahead of 2003

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
November 10, 2004

Almost 10,000 metro-area real estate foreclosures have been filed in the first 10 months of this year, eclipsing last year's tally.

And only a technicality prevented that number from exceeding 10,000. That's because at least two counties - Denver and Arapahoe - decided not to hold foreclosure sales during the week before Christmas.

(snip)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/real_estate/article/0,1299,DRMN_414_3317736,00.html


But the economy is booming! Jobs abound! :eyes: