Foreclosures are Down in Alabama

According to news story in today's Birmingham News, foreclosure filings across Alabama fell nearly 20 percent in March from a year earlier, bucking the national trend and suggesting more borrowers are paying their mortgages on time.

There were 649 Alabama homes in some stage of foreclosure in March, according to a study by California-based mortgage researcher RealtyTrac. That is 19.4 percent fewer than a year earlier, and 8 percent fewer than in February.

The improvement moved Alabama near the top of the list for fewest foreclosures. Only seven other states had fewer. Nationally, the trend was poor. There were 234,685 properties in foreclosure during March, a 5 percent increase from the previous month and a 57 percent increase from March 2007.

"Nationally, the foreclosure situation for this year has been a huge concern," said Ty Dodge, president of RealtySouth, Birmingham's largest home-seller. "But here in Alabama, the numbers have been nowhere near the early predictions."

Alabama's March rate works out to one foreclosure proceeding for every 3,251 homes. The national rate is 1 foreclosure proceeding for every 538 homes.

Foreclosures happen when people fail to pay their mortgages and lenders move to take over the property. Failed payments soared last year, after the great mortgage boom that started in 2001. That boom extended mortgages to millions of people with poor credit and little cash who didn't qualify under earlier and stricter standards.

"The March numbers show that overall foreclosure activity so far this year continues to run nearly 60 percent above the levels we saw last year," said James Saccacio, chief executive of RealtyTrac. "On a year-over-year basis, default notices were up nearly 57 percent and bank repossessions were up nearly 129 percent."

Things were worst in California. Foreclosure filings were reported on 64,711 California properties in March, the most of any state for the 15th consecutive month. California foreclosure activity increased nearly 21 percent from February and almost 106 percent from March 2007.

Trends in the Southeast weren't good, Alabama excepted. Florida posted the second highest national total, with foreclosure filings reported on 30,254 properties in March. The state's foreclosure activity rose almost 112 percent from March 2007.

Georgia's total of 11,047 was the country's fourth highest, and one in every 351 Georgia households received a foreclosure filing during the month. The state had the country's fourth-highest March foreclosures.