Foreclosures in the Washington region have shown one of the more dramatic drops in the country in the first half of the year, but experts say Prince George’s County is still far behind. Roughly 12,500 properties went into foreclosure during the first six months of the year, a 54 percent drop from January-June 2010, according to the foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac. Just 20 out of 211 major markets posted a greater improvement in foreclosures.
Much of the decline in the region, which includes Southern Maryland and part of West Virginia, came from Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, which combined for nearly 4,000 fewer foreclosures.
RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist said the Washington region most likely has gotten past the peak of foreclosure activity.
| Foreclosures falling fast | ||||
| Jan-June | YTD | Annual | Jan-June | |
| filings | rate | change | 2010 filings | |
| District | 148 | 1/1,927 | -88% | 1,221 |
| Arlington | 196 | 1/530 | -51% | 402 |
| Alexandria | 208 | 1/340 | -50% | 414 |
| Fairfax | 2,343 | 1/168 | -46% | 4,308 |
| Loudoun | 900 | 1/118 | -47% | 1,683 |
| Prince William | 1,736 | 1/79 | -44% | 3,107 |
| Montgomery | 857 | 1/427 | -71% | 3,002 |
| Prince George’s | 3,358 | 1/96 | -55% | 7,480 |
| Washington area | 12,533 | 1/172 | -55% | 27,631 |
| National | 1.17m | 1/111 | -25% | 1.65m |
| Source: RealtyTrac | ||||
Of the counties, Montgomery had the largest drop in foreclosure rates, followed by Prince George’s. Farther north, Baltimore’s foreclosure rate plummeted by 74 percent.
But there’s a catch. The 20 metro areas with the biggest year-over-year decreases in foreclosure activity were all in states with judicial foreclosure processes — Maryland, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois.
“So in the D.C. area it’s a mixture of good news,” Blomquist said. “The size of the decrease is probably exaggerated
because of some of the delays in the foreclosure processing seen in judicial foreclosure states.”
Maryland’s lag time between the first foreclosure notice and final action is now roughly one and a half years, ballooning from 216 days, or about seven months, in 2008. Meanwhile Virginia’s lag time is 102 days, up only two weeks over the last several years.
Dragging out the filings process will slow down the home price rebound in Maryland markets where the foreclosure rate has been higher, Blomquist said.
But in the Washington area, that applies more to Prince George’s than Montgomery, said economist Anirban Basu, chief executive officer of Sage Policy Group, a Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm.
“Montgomery is exempted to a large extent,” he said. “For one, there were not a lot of first-time buyers there. So a lot of them had more stable incomes and higher salaries so they were less susceptible to foreclosures than in Prince George’s County.”
