"Real" 2008 foreclosure filings for Wake county, NC

2008 is now behind us. I've summarized the "real" 2008 foreclosure filings for Wake county, NC below.

Foreclosure Filings	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2000	21	33	36	27	40	31	31	32	28	45	32	24	380
2001	59	38	28	39	49	29	43	42	34	41	60	40	502
2002	60	41	57	51	57	50	78	63	96	59	60	48	720
2003	46	96	71	89	77	123	115	118	121	151	126	125	1258
2004	148	108	116	108	124	132	103	119	140	124	96	108	1426
2005	105	69	104	113	82	78	87	123	86	114	125	109	1195
2006	104	113	82	77	145	111	85	139	90	91	79	57	1173
2007	132	104	106	105	90	123	88	91	66	126	99	89	1219
2008	108	102	114	141	109	108	93	109	108	149	101	107	1349

By "real" foreclosure filings, I am counting property where the trustee submitted the Final report of sale of real property per state law. The national-level tracking firms like realtyTrac count "all types of pre-foreclosure and foreclosure homes...." This tends to inflate the "foreclosure" numbers by including things like property that have a late payment or two but no S-TR or SP filing.

So Wake county foreclosures crept up over 9% in 2008 from 2007 levels. The current foreclosure rate is about what we saw in 2003/2004, the aftermath of the tech meltdown. Not a good level, but not a calamity either. In future entries, I will dive deeper into the numbers and offer a method of predicting future foreclosure rates.

Reference: http://www.realtytrac.com/ Our real estate foreclosure listings include all types of pre-foreclosure and foreclosure homes, from properties in default, which represent possible short sale foreclosure opportunities, to foreclosure auctions, when a notice of sale has been filed against a property, to bank foreclosures — whether the bank has taken back property through a foreclosure sale or through a deed in lieu of foreclosure.

See also http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2008/02/11/daily23.html - 2/13/2008: RealtyTrac: Raleigh-area foreclosures up 123%. "... RealtyTrac's numbers contrast with official figures provided by the state. Those numbers say Wake County saw foreclosures increase in 2007, but only by 20 percent."