Foreclosure posting activity for the first 10 foreclosure auctions of this year in Bell County set a new local record, said George Roddy Sr., president of Foreclosure Listing Service Inc., a nationally recognized research firm based in Addison.
“So far this year, from January through the upcoming foreclosure auction on the first Tuesday in October, 1,123 postings have been filed on Bell County real estate, which was a 4 percent increase over this time last year when 1,077 notices were filed ¾ the highest year-to-date foreclosure rate since we began tracking Bell County foreclosure posting activity six years ago, in 2001,” Roddy said.
A spokesman for RealtyTrack, inc., a national foreclosure tracking service, said that foreclosures from January through August are up 68 percent across the country.
Katrina Berndt, Realtor with Pepper Creek Realtors in Belton, said she wasn’t surprised by the number of foreclosures. “That’s one reason the Fed got so serious about this,” she said.
Ms. Berndt believes she has seen who has been most affected.
“I’m thinking the 1,123 postings so far this year are probably primarily home owners. I feel so sorry for these people being put out of their homes. I’m not seeing investors being foreclosed on. They would rather lose money and get a write-off than lose their property,” she said.
But Bell County is not even close to being as hard-hit as many other cities across Texas or the United States.
Lennox Alfred, owner-broker of Coldwell Bankers Lennox Alfred Realtors-Temple, said foreclosure rates in the West Coast and in Atlanta are up dramatically.
Roddy said. “Due to the military presence, the county’s foreclosure market has been peculiar in that it has not endured the extreme high or low phases of the foreclosure cycles that have been typical for most other Texas counties.”
Some of those who have lost their homes during the past year created investment opportunities for Lewis LoCicero, retired home builder and Temple-based real estate investor. LoCicero has been buying foreclosed homes during the past four years at prices lower than what he could build them.
“These people (buyers) don’t know what they’re doing with these floating rate loans,” LoCicero said. “Anybody can get a loan now but the lenders are not putting a ceiling on the interest rates and then buyers get in trouble. This is the first home they have ever bought.”
“During the past four years I’ve seen the trend in the number of foreclosures rising for residential and commercial property. One of the big things is that the people who are getting home loans today are not fully analyzing the loan. And the people who are giving them the loans, a lot of these people are going to get their loans back,” LoCicero said.
The ex-builder also sees a soft housing market, increased property valuations, higher taxes and lower wages also contributing to the foreclosures. “And I’m thinking maybe 20 percent of the foreclosures are from divorces, young couples who both have to work to make it. That creates tension,” he said.
Roddy expanded on LoCicero’s observations in his Sept. 14 release of state-wide foreclosure data. “Major factors contributing to today’s foreclosure market include not only lax lending practices, but also increases in the cost of living, rising credit card debt, increases in the minimum monthly credit card payment for many Americans, increases in the interest rate and the subsequent increase to the monthly mortgage payment of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) and interest only loans, and increased difficulty in filing for bankruptcy,” Roddy said.
But Roddy was optimistic about the prospects for Bell County. “Due to the unique economy created by the military presence within the county, Bell is in a better position than some of its neighboring counties. For example, in Travis, Williamson, Hays and McLennan counties, the average loan posted for foreclosure in October originated one year earlier than in Bell County. So those counties will most likely need a little longer to work through this segment of the foreclosure cycle.”
sshaffer@temple-telegram.com
