Foreclosure filings dropped in the Washington area in the first quarter from a year earlier, bucking a national trend that saw a 24 percent overall increase.
The number of filings fell 12 percent from the first quarter of 2008 for the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria region, according to data released Thursday by the online foreclosure-tracking Web site RealtyTrac.
Montgomery County saw a slight uptick and Prince George’s County saw a slight decrease in the first quarter. In Virginia, Loudoun County’s filings dropped about 10 percent and Prince William County’s 40 percent. Among states, Virginia ranked 10th with one foreclosure for every 222 housing units and Maryland was 16th with one in every 250 units. Nevada was first with one in 27, and the national average was one filing for every 159 units.
Many local jurisdictions and nonprofit organizations have established programs to prevent foreclosures and get them off the market as the housing crisis has deepened. HomeFree-USA, based in Hyattsville, is hosting “Foreclosure Intervention Day” on April 25 to help distressed homeowners.
“We helped 1,000 metro D.C. homeowners avoid foreclosure at the beginning of the year, and we are ready to do the same for 1,000 more people,” said Marcia Griffin, founder and president of HomeFree-USA.
Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing for RealtyTrac, said these efforts may have helped stabilize Washington’s housing market.
Nationwide, foreclosure filings in March increased nearly 50 percent from March 2008, and 24 percent from the first quarter 2008.
“We weren’t surprised by the increase,” Sharga said. He said foreclosures in the past few months were articificially lowered because of lender and bank-imposed moratoriums.
Despite the local downturn, RealtyTrac Chief Executive James Saccacio warned that the problem could get worse now that most of the moratoriums have been lifted.
Sharga said the resettings of adjustable-rate mortgages this year were going to cause problems, but a bigger problem was unemployment. He said that every 100 jobs lost would cause between six and 10 foreclosures. There is a 90-day lag between the loss of a job and a foreclosure, he said.
