San Benito County bucked state trends of lowering foreclosure
rates in the month of September while moving into second place of
the 58 California counties for the worst foreclosure-to-homeowner
ratio.
San Benito County bucked state trends of lowering foreclosure rates in the month of September while moving into second place of the 58 California counties for the worst foreclosure-to-homeowner ratio. For the month, 256 homes entered some stage of foreclosure, up 3 percent over August and 288 percent over last year, and one in 70 homes in the county are in the process of foreclosure, according to the most recent data from Irvine-based RealtyTrac.
“We are seeing more dead lawns,” said Mike Chambless, code enforcement officer for Hollister, who also notes that his office has been receiving a sudden rush of complaints regarding illegal housing issues such as people living in garages and sheds
Only Merced County, with one out of every 60 homes in foreclosure, is in worse shape than San Benito County. Locals may be encouraged by data that shows the 3 percent rise in foreclosure from August to September is much smaller than percentage rises seen in previous months. In fact, the number rose 67 percent from July to August and 83 percent the month before that.
“I can only hope that we are close to the end of this downturn locally,” said C.J. Valenzuela, the housing programs coordinator with San Benito County. “In the meantime, we can continue to control the factors that we can control and collaborate with the public, code enforcement, the community pantry and all other organizations that can help homeowners.”
Valenzuela also noted that the housing department has adopted a resolution to convince Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, as well as other state offices, to provide San Benito County with funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Grant that the federal government is awarding to states.
“If we are the second hardest hit county in recent months, we should definitely be high on the list of those receiving funds, and those funds would allow us to fix up these abandoned homes and get them sold,” Valenzuela said.
Karl Skow, a broker associate with Treehouse Mortgage Group, also sees reason for cautious optimism.
“Even though foreclosures may go on at a high rate for some time,” said Skow, “we have also seen sales of single-family homes triple since January, from 12 sales in that month to 54 in September.”
Skow explained that as prices have dropped, local homes have become more affordable, and those homes are being sold with “strictly 30-year fixed FHA loans” unlikely to result in a high rate of foreclosure in the future.
“Have we seen a bottom?” queried Skow. “No one can say – there are still a lot of homes where people owe more than they are worth, and some of those homes will go through foreclosure.
“But we are at a point where families that have been priced out of the market for years are able to afford a home,” summarized Skow. “We have had a lot of years of bad outlooks, and now we may be seeing a situation that will be beneficial for a lot of people. You never know you have hit the bottom until you start bouncing back up.”
