Home foreclosure filings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have risen to a record high, with more than 5,500 properties facing forced sale next month.
The number of houses threatened with foreclosure in May rose 25 percent from a year earlier, breaking all previous records, according to statistics released Thursday by Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service.
Worsening economic conditions have caused more homeowners to fall behind in their mortgage payments. But analysts with Foreclosure Listing Service say the biggest reason for the increase in postings in the last few months has been moratoriums on foreclosures put in place by many mortgage lenders.
“They have been reposting many of these properties every month because of the moratoriums,” said George Roddy, Foreclosure Listing Service president. “They have no choice but to continue posting the properties for foreclosure while they negotiate with the borrowers.”
More than 40 percent of the current foreclosure postings Dallas County are repeats.
While the number of foreclosure filings has ballooned in recent months, the actual volume of houses sold on the courthouse steps by lenders has fallen, Roddy said.
“The average is between 30 percent and 40 percent of all properties posted are actually foreclosed on each month,” he said. “But it’s been down in the high teens or low 20s.
“There has obviously been a lot of pressure on lenders not to foreclose during the last few months.”
But for many troubled homeowners, those delays may now be over. Some lenders have recently announced that they are lifting the self-imposed moratoriums.
“I think the floodgates are going to open,” Roddy said.
The biggest increase in May postings was in Collin County, where the number of homes posted for foreclosure jumped 45 percent and topped 700 for the first time.
In Dallas County, foreclosure postings for next month’s sale are up 15 percent from May 2008.
Through the first five months of 2009, more than 24,000 home foreclosure filings were recorded in the four-county Dallas-Fort Worth area, Foreclosure Listing Service said Thursday. That’s up 11 percent from the same period of 2008.
For all of last year, more than 50,000 D-FW area foreclosure postings were recorded – 17 percent higher than 2007 and a record.
So far, lender efforts to restructure home loans and keep owners in their homes have met with limited success. And a loan modification program supported with government funds is just getting under way.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department identified the first six major mortgage companies that will receive up to $10 billion to help troubled borrowers.
“We know that job loss is the primary reason that people are losing their homes today,” said Ted Wilson, a housing analyst with Residential Strategies Inc.
More 30,000 jobs were lost in the D-FW at the end of February compared with a year earlier, according to the latest statistics.
Since then, other local companies have announced layoffs.
“I think there is a definite correlation between the announced layoffs and the foreclosure postings,” Wilson said.
Economist James Gaines of Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center said he isn’t surprised by increases in D-FW foreclosures.
“The economy is catching up with us and especially some of the more dicey financing going on several years ago,” Gaines said.
“Lenders are getting nervous also from reports of declining home values in the Dallas area, some of which is being caused by the foreclosure sales.”
By STEVE BROWN/ The Dallas Morning News