April 29, 2008

New Report Says Brooklyn Foreclosures Up 27%

Another week, another new set of abysmal foreclosure stats, this time from RealtyTrac via a report in the Post. RealtyTrac's numbers for the first quarter of '08 show that one in every 241 Brooklyn homeowners is now in the foreclosure process, more than double last year's rate. New York-area foreclosures are up 34 percent. RealtyTrac's data takes into account that the city's foreclosure process is very long, and a company rep says we probably haven't reached the bottom yet. "We are still waiting for the other shoe to drop," says RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist. Rep. Nydia Velazquez says more of her constituents are calling her up as rates rise on their ARMs. "They call because they don't know what to do," she says, also noting that she expects the situation to get worse. RealtyTrac's report on New York foreclosures differs substantially from Property Shark's first quarter report, which said there had been a 66 percent rise in the number of new foreclosures scheduled in New York City in the first quarter of this year. The difference in stats may be rooted in the fact that Property Shark only tracks new foreclosures. Either way, the news ain't good.
Metro Foreclosure Rate Soars 34% [NY Post]
Graphic from the Post.

April 15, 2008

Foreclosure of the Week: 644 Flatbush Avenue

One thing's for sure, the winner of the foreclosure auction for 644 Flatbush Avenue won't go hungry! The outstanding tab on the three-story building between Fenimore and Hawthorne is $540,474, safely below its market value (even in this market). The 4,320-square-foot building is currently configured as two apartments over a restaurant. Interested bidders should bring their checkbooks to 360 Adams Street, Room 261, at 3 p.m. on Thursday.
644 Flatbush Avenue [Property Shark] GMAP

April 9, 2008

The Heat is On

The website HotPads is producing foreclosure heat maps, such as the one for Brooklyn above. The data for the maps comes from RealtyTrac, which collects info on foreclosure filings. No big surprises: The site's NYC map show that East New York, Bushwick, Bownsville and Canarsie have some of the highest concentrations of foreclosures per capita in Brooklyn, while Manhattan has almost none and large swaths of Queens are way too hot to handle.
Brooklyn Foreclosure Map [HotPads]
Fine Tuning the Picture On the Foreclosure Mess [WSJ]

April 3, 2008

First-Quarter Foreclosure Report: Modest Rise for Bklyn

In addition to quarterly sales data hitting this week, we also get a quarterly foreclosure report from Property Shark. On the bright side, the firm's New York City foreclosure numbers look like a teensy blip compared to L.A. and Miami: The warmer climes had 8,877 and 2,231 foreclosures scheduled in the first three months of this year, respectively, while NYC had 918 scheduled. Since we're talking about foreclosures, though, that's more or less where the good news ends. There were 140 foreclosures scheduled in Brooklyn last quarter, compared to 103 in Q4 2007; the first three months of '07 saw 129 scheduled foreclosures, so this quarter's numbers don't signify a huge year-to-year leap. The 11233 (Bed-Stuy and surrounding areas) and 11207 (East New York and surrounding areas) ZIPs topped the Brooklyn forcs charts. In all of New York City, there was a 66 percent rise in the number of foreclosures compared to this time last year, with the highest number by far recorded in Queens (508).
Foreclosure Reports [Property Shark]