Published: June 21, 2009 02:38 pm      

Hays foreclosure listings hit all-time high

San Marcos — Record numbers of properties have been listed for foreclosure in July in three counties in the Austin Metro area including Hays County, the Foreclosure Listing Service said this week.

Hays, Travis and Williamson counties all had record numbers of listings for the current foreclosure cycle, said the FLS, which is based in Addison.

“Hays County monthly postings toppled 140 for the first time in this foreclosure cycle and probably for the first time on record,” said FLS President George Roddy. He said, “143 postings were filed for foreclosure at the July auction, which was 104 percent higher than for the July auction of 2008 when just 70 postings were recorded.”

Roddy noted that Hays has had 100 or more listings each month for the past six months, and that year-to-date postings also show a sharp increase.

“Hays County year-to-date foreclosure notices surpassed previous levels with 831 notices filed for auctions in this seven-month period,” Roddy said. “This marked the first time that year-to-date postings have exceeded 800 in Hays County. Over the past year, year-to-date postings have climbed 47 percent from the 566 notices recorded for this same period last year.”

In Travis County, there are 782 postings for July, an increase of 117 percent from a year ago. Roddy said Travis’ year-o-date postings have increased 64 percent.

Monthly postings in Williamson County, meanwhile, shot up 111 percent; while year-to-date listings have surged percent.

Bastrop was the only county in the Austin Metro area not to set a record in the number of postings. Monthly listings in the county were up 72 percent and year-to-date listings up by 58 percent.

Roddy noted a continuing three-month trend in the increase of properties being listed that had been listed within the previous six months.

“In April, just 30 percent of the total residential postings filed were comprised of re-postings. However, the story has been far different in recent months. The percentage of residential postings which were re-filed spiked up in May to 44 percent. Then, for both the June and July foreclosure auctions, 47 percent of the residential foreclosure postings recorded were re--postings, which means these notices had previously posted for foreclosure within the past six month.”

Roddy said he has no firm statistics, but believes three factors have contributed to the increase in re-postings.

“First, as the volume of delinquent loans has continued to rise, lenders are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of loans in the foreclosure process. Most lenders' REO (real estate owned) departments are simply not large enough at this time to handle processing the large number of potential foreclosures out there.

“Secondly,” he continued, “in addition to processing and dealing with properties that are in the foreclosure posting process, lenders are being besieged by requests for loan modifications. Many of those requests involve properties with enough payments delinquent that they have already moved into some stage of the foreclosure process; therefore, many of these lenders appear to be holding off on the actual foreclosure to allow some time for the modification to be processed.

“And, thirdly,” he added, “the marketplace may still be experience some residual effects of the foreclosure moratoriums put in place by many mortgage lenders late last year and in the beginning of this year.”

Roddy said it’s “important to remember, that once a property is posted for foreclosure, the lender has the right to seize the property at that foreclosure auction. That is unless the property owner catches up on their delinquent payments, pays off the mortgage in full, or files for bankruptcy protection. While it would be in bad taste to foreclosure upon a property that is in the loan modification process, technically it could happen.”