There were 26,605 foreclosure filings in the Denver metro area in 2009, a 6.4 percent increase from 2008.
Although the foreclosures last year were the second highest on record – topped only by the 27,122 filings in 2007 in the seven-county area – there were signs of encouragement, as well as a sea change in where the foreclosure activity is gaining speed.
Denver County, for example, which a few years ago was ground-zero for foreclosure activity, showed a slight increase in filings in 2009 from 2008. Foreclosures also fell in 2008 from 2007 in Denver County, when it peaked with 8,240 for filings. Denver was the only county to show a decrease in foreclosures in the fourth quarter from the same period in 2008.
Adams County, with many lower-priced homes, also has been at center-stage for foreclosure activity in recent years, but filing activity was flat in 2009 from 2008, as well as the fourth-quarter of 2009 compared with the last three months of 2008. Overall, foreclosure filings in the fourth quarter from the same period in 2008 were up 32 percent. Some observers are predicting that another wave of foreclosures could sweep over the Denver area next year.
“Our foreclosure sales are actually down about 20 percent from 2008, and the number of foreclosures being withdrawn are up 17 percent,” said Carol Snyder, public trustee for Adams County.
“That means more people are staying in their homes and not losing them in foreclosures,” Snyder said. “I think that is a more important than the number of filings.”
She said banks appear much more willing to work with homeowners than they have been in the past.
“I think the banks are learning that it is better to modify loans and keep people in their houses than to add more real estate foreclosures to their portfolios,” Snyder said.
Shannon Peer, director of Housing Counseling, agreed, but is still worried that the state may face more foreclosure filings, which could swamp the state and the system.
He said that the Colorado Foreclosure Hotline (877-601-4673), which Brothers manages, has helped a lot of people learn their options, helping to keep many people out of foreclosure and in their homes.
“But there are indications that a second wave of foreclosure filings building,” Peer said, because of the economy. In addition, another round of option-ARMs are set to adjust upward in the second half of the year, which could be a calamity for homeowners barley hanging on with their current payments, he said.
He said a “second or third-wave of foreclosure filings,” could offset the drop in foreclosure sales, as well as drop the increase in foreclosure cures and withdrawals.
Meanwhile, Boulder, Broomfield and Douglas counties have experienced the largest percentage increases in foreclosures, although their overall numbers are still smaller than in Denver, Adams and Arapahoe counties.
“This is the highest number we have ever done. Ever,” said Dianne Bailey, public trustee for Douglas County, where the 2,765 filings in 2009 were almost 27 percent higher than in 2008. Boulder foreclosures rose by more than 38 percent, the biggest increase of the seven area counties.
Bailey was surprised in the surge of foreclosures filings.
“I thought they were going to level off after 2008,” she said. “I guess we thought they just couldn’t go any higher.”
More expensive homes entering the foreclosure process is a trend that counselors saw emerge last year, said Peer, of Brothers Redevelopment in Edgewater.
“Over the last year, we have been seeing more homeowners who had higher incomes that we had seen previously,” Peer said. “We’re seeing more home values above $250,000 we had seen in the past. In the past, the under $200,000 price range had been the hard-hit market. We have seen homes in Evergreen in the $800,000 and $900,000 range, we have seen homes down south in the $600,000 to $650,000 price range. I would say this is a trend that started a good eight months ago. ”
He said it was possible that owners of expensive homes were able to hold out longer than people at the lower-wrung of the economy, but now they, too, are losing their jobs.
One of the challenges they face is that because much of the jumbo-loan money has dried up, it is difficult to find buyers for homes that have mortgages larger than conventional limits of $417,000.
“They are being pinched,” Peer said. “Their are very buyers out there unless they can pay cash. And there aren’t many cash buyers.”
Bobby Burnett, principal of Keller Williams Realty DTC, said that while his regular home sales business was way down last year, his short-sale business was up 50 percent to 60 percent from 2008. A short sale is when a lender takes less than the mortgage amount.
Although the prices were “all across the board,” the biggest increase of distressed properties was for ultra-expensive homes.
“We saw them in Parker, Castle Rocky, a bunch in Boulder,” Burnett said. “The only place that seemed semi-insulated was Castle Pines Village. I find properties are still selling there.”
Many of the expensive homes are selling for huge discounts, he said.
He tried to sell one home west of Sedalia for $1.1 million, which previously had sold for $1.4 million. Later, the home went into foreclosure and another broker sold it for $750,000.
Perhaps one of the biggest bargains is a 9,000-square-foot home on 11 acres in Elbert County that was appraised at $3 million three years ago. It’s likely now to sell in a short sale for about $800,000, he said.
“The house looks like a southern mansion in Atlanta,” Burnett said.
Denver City Councilman Rick Garcia, who a couple of years created a Foreclosure Task Force, said that he is not surprised that foreclosure activity is rising faster in the suburbs than in the city.
“As I recall a couple of years ago from data from the Foreclosure Task Force, the average price of a home in foreclosure in Denver was around $124,000, far below the median-price of a home in the city,” Garcia said.
Many of those homes, he said, have been purchased with the help of federal funds or have been “gobbled up” by private investors. They have since been “rehabilitated” and put back into the market, he said.
The first round of foreclosures came from “unscrupulous lenders,” who saddled buyers with high-mortgage rates, Garcia said. Many of those homes in Denver have since worked their way through the system, Garcia said.
He said he thinks many more of those kind of loan, as well as no downpayment loans that were not supported by incomes, were made in suburban subdivisions.
“Denver seems to be bottoming out of the foreclosure circumstances,” Garcia said. “Now, I would say we are seeing more of what I would call “traditional” foreclosures, caused by people losing their jobs.”
Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing, said that the Denver-area data seems to confirm that more expensive homes in suburban areas are now suffering from growing foreclosures.
“Overall, what I would say is that the Denver-area is fairly flat, while foreclosures are rising elsewhere in Colorado,” McMaken said.
Later this months, McMaken will release a report that will show a record number of foreclosure filings in the state. In 2008, there were just under 40,000 foreclosure filings in all of Colorado, but his data will show more than 45,000 filings in 2009.
There are still a few counties to report to the division, but he expects about 47,000 filings when he receives all of the data. “I’m already at something like 45,400,” he said.
He noted that when the foreclosure crisis began several years ago, “the Denver-area was driving it,” and much of the area outside of the metro area remained impervious.
That is no longer true, as more populous areas along the eastern plains, as well as a number of Western slope communities, are seeing huge percentage increases in foreclosures.
“Of course, there are other economic factors driving the foreclosures in a lot of mid-sized counties outside of the Denver metro area,” he said. For example, a downturn in mining and exploration is hurting the Grand Junction area, while the failure of Greeley-based New Frontier Bank hurt ranchers and farmer.
2008 vs. 2009 Chart___Click Here!!
Sources: Public Trustees
*Adams County removed “repeat” filings, which reduced the total amount by about 100 each year
In case you missed in today’s Denver Post
