Home Foreclosures Surge in Wake, Durham Counties

Home foreclosures in Wake and Durham counties shot up dramatically in October compared to one year ago as the nation’s housing crisis swept with a vengeance into the Triangle.

Data provided to WRAL.com by Realty Trac, a nationally recognized firm that follows the real estate industry, showed that home owners also lost properties at an increased rate in Johnston and Franklin counties. Little change was seen in Orange County, and foreclosures remained relatively rare in Chatham County.

In Wake, 427 properties were foreclosed in October, more than double the 178 of the same month a year earlier and two years ago.

In Durham, meanwhile, foreclosures increased to 194 compared to 95 in 2006 and 51 in 2005.

A witches’ brew of increasing mortgage rates, falling home prices and the so-called “sub prime” mortgage crisis that has cost banks and Wall Street hundreds of billions of dollars led the Bush Administration to huddle with financial regulators and bankers on Friday to discuss ways of alleviating the housing crisis.

On Thursday, the North Carolina Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes in October dropped 20 percent compared to a year earlier. In the Triangle, where existing and new home sales are combined by the Realtors, sales were off 14 percent. However, home prices did increase 6 percent to $239,820.

Nationally, the median price for a home sold dropped 5.1 percent to $207,800, the biggest year-over-year decline on record, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Elsewhere across the Triangle, the foreclosure news was not good either.

Johnston County foreclosures climbed to 79 from 61 a year ago. In Franklin County, 35 homes were foreclosed compared to 27 in 2006. Eleven foreclosures took place in Chatham, up from six in 2006.

Only three foreclosures were reported in Orange County.

Statewide, Realty Trace reported 4,025 foreclosures in October, more than double the 1,635 a year earlier and more than triple the 1,160 in the same month two years earlier. North Carolina ranked 20th nationally.

Nationally, foreclosures surged to 224,451, nearly double the 115,568 reported in October of 2006. However, that 2007 total is 15,000 shy of the more than 239,000 reported in August, which was the peak for the year.

Foreclosures in Wake County actually fell from 341 in May to 200 in June. Since then, however, legal actions have increased every month – to 236 in July, 331 in August and 389 in September.

In Durham, foreclosures actually dropped from 143 in May to 107 in June and 97 in July before jumping to 198 in August. After a dip to 185 in September, the foreclosure increase resumed.