Springfield, state foreclosures jump in first quarter
Chris Wrinkle
Posted online
Missouri’s 9,080 home foreclosures in the first quarter of 2010 represent a 9.5 percent increase from fourth quarter 2009 and a 24.5 percent hike from first quarter 2009, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.
Nationwide, home foreclosures increased 7.2 percent during the first quarter and 16 percent from first quarter 2009. Missouri ranks 30th in the nation.
New Springfield home foreclosure numbers also shot up from the previous month, according to RealtyTrac.
There were 178 new foreclosures in Springfield in March, up from 110 in February, a 62 percent increase. There are 873 homes in foreclosure in Springfield.
“Foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2010 followed a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first quarter of 2009: a shallow trough in January and February followed by a substantial spike in March,” RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio said in a news release.
A difference in the 2010 numbers is that the increase occurred more in the final stage of foreclosure. The number of real-estate owned properties increased 9 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2010, compared to a 13 percent quarterly decrease in REOs in the first quarter of 2009.
"This subtle shift in the numbers pushed REOs to the highest quarterly total we’ve ever seen in our report and may be further evidence that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory that has built up over the last year as foreclosure prevention programs and processing delays slowed down the normal foreclosure timeline,” Saccacio said in the release.[[In-content Ad]]