Austin Foreclosures Up; Still Fewer Than Other Markets

During these tough economic times, the entire country is experiencing the financial pinch.  Sadly, thousands of people have lost their homes to foreclosure due to their inability to pay their home mortgage loans.  Although these financial difficulties have struck the Austin area as well, RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, California reports that Austin performed better than other cities in 2008 when it comes to the number of foreclosures.

According to RealtyTrac Inc., just under 1% of homes were foreclosed upon in the Austin-Round Rock area.  This accounts for 5,737 properties and places the Austin-Round Rock area in the number 80 position of the top 100 U.S. metro areas.  At the national level, home foreclosures rose a staggering 81%, which equates to 2,3330,483 homes.

Other Texas cities are faring fairly well in terms of foreclosures, with San Antonio, Fort Worth and Dallas all showing foreclosure rates of around 1%.  Texas, which posted about 32,000 foreclosures, had the worse rate in the state at 1.5%. 

There are several cities around the country that have been hit much harder than those in Texas.  Stockton, California, for example, saw over 9% of its homes go into foreclosure.  These figures translate into the loss of 21,127 properties.  Another metro area in California, the Riverside-San Bernardino area, also saw a huge loss of 8%.  For this area, the percentage equates to about 112,284 home losses.

Although the Austin-Round Rock area is looking good in comparison to other metro areas, the figures still represent an 11% increase when compared to 2007 figures.