Foreclosure sales in Maryland and Virginia fell last year, but hard-hit Prince George’s and Prince William counties are still suffering as foreclosures there accounted for more than one-third of all sales in 2010. And while the Washington area performed better than the nation, experts said the housing market here isn’t out of the woods as it could take more than two years to work through the thousands of bank-owned properties still waiting to be sold.
| Foreclosure sales down in 2010 | |||
| Prince William, Prince George’s still trouble spots | |||
| Number | Annual | Portion of | |
| County | of sales | change | all home sales |
| Montgomery | 2,252 | -17% | 16% |
| Prince George’s | 3,583 | -10% | 35% |
| Arlington | 225 | -39% | 8% |
| Fairfax | 2,664 | -49% | 22% |
| Loudoun | 1,228 | -39% | 23% |
| Prince William | 3,044 | -50% | 41% |
| Alexandria | 240 | -33% | 13% |
| Washington area | 17,434 | -36% | 23% |
| Source: RealtyTrac | |||
“[Bank-owned property] sale activity slowed down because of the robosigning scandal,” said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for the firm RealtyTrac, which published the report. “So it just resulted in a buildup of inventory of those properties.”
Last fall, revelations that lenders blazed through thousands of foreclosure filings without reading them prompted a national investigation into the foreclosure process that many said would only delay filings and create a new wave of foreclosures in 2011.
Filings nationwide slowed at the end of 2010, according to RealtyTrac. Last month in Maryland, filings were down 70 percent compared with a year ago; Virginia filings fell by 42 percent.
The number of foreclosure sales in Maryland dropped by 17 percent in 2010 while in Virginia sales decreased by 31 percent. The Washington region, which includes Northern Virginia, the District and southwestern and central Maryland, averaged an annual drop in foreclosure sales of 36 percent.
Nationally, distressed property sales dropped by 31 percent, which experts attribute to less demand after the expiration of the federal homebuyers tax credit and fewer properties for sale because of the robosigning scandal.
Sales in Fairfax and Prince William counties plummeted — shrinking by half their number in 2009. Loudoun and Arlington counties also showed big improvements with foreclosure sales decreasing by 39 percent.
But some jurisdictions have further to climb than others. Foreclosed properties still made up 41 percent of all home sales in Prince William County last year, the highest percentage in the region. In Prince George’s County, foreclosures made up more than one-third of sales.
Regionwide, foreclosed homes made up 23 percent of all home sales last year compared with 26 percent nationally.
Banks own nearly 16,000 properties in the region as of last month, according to RealtyTrac. While that’s down from the peak of more than 18,000 properties in November 2008, Blomquist estimated it will take two and a half years for all of them to be sold at the current pace.
By and large banks have learned from the housing crash in 2008 not to flood the market with foreclosures, and experts say institutions will slowly release homes on the market. In the Washington region, roughly 30 percent foreclosed homes are actually for sale.
“That’s a pretty steady flow of those properties on the market that will continue to weigh down prices,” Blomquist said.
