Foreclosures in Summit County
Foreclosures continue to be prominent in the national housing market.
With Summit County being primarily a second home market we haven’t been a victim of the large number of foreclosures that many other markets have. Summit County, however, is not immune. In Summit County 2008 saw 193 properties begin the foreclosure process. Only 75, or 38.9%, of those properties were timeshares.
The majority of properties that begin the foreclosure process never make it to the foreclosure sale. Only 66, 34.2%, made it to sale in 2008 and of those 66, all but 18 were timeshares. So, if only 18 properties, not timeshares, made it to sale, what happened to the other 100 that are in foreclosure but are not timeshares?
Here’s the breakdown. 46 of those 100 properties were cured, meaning the owner found a way to pay the mortgage current therefore, taking it out of foreclosure. How exactly the owners manage to do that is unclear. They may have sold the property, borrowed money, inherited money, robbed a bank or renegotiated their loan. Somehow they have found a way to bring their mortgage current or to pay it off.
Two of those same 100 filed bankruptcy.
The other 52 are still waiting for their sale date to come around. They may have convinced their lender to give them more time, extending the sale date, or they may have just gone into foreclosure the last week of December. Either way, they still have time to find a way to avoid the foreclosure sale. My bet is that most will succeed.
What do these foreclosures mean to Summit County buyers and sellers? Not much, really. At this point there aren’t enough foreclosures out there to impact prices in the market and there aren’t many that have the makings of an exceptional deal. The best way to purchase a foreclosure is through a standard real estate transaction. There are too many risks involved purchasing property on the courthouse steps. For starters, you have to have cash now. If you do have cash in hand, you are probably buying a property sight unseen. Who knows what it looks like inside. What if there is structural damage? What if the owners still live there? Will they voluntary move out or do you have to evict them? These issues can easily be avoided by targeting properties in foreclosure that are already listed for sale and purchasing them with a traditional real estate contract.
If you are looking to purchase a property in foreclosure you need to be on our Foreclosure Alerts. Foreclosure Alerts will notify you of Summit County properties that are in the foreclosure process and are currently on the market. If you currently own a property and are facing foreclosure we can help you too. Often times a win-win situation can be negotiated in which both the Buyer and Seller are happy with the outcome. Send Meredith an email for more information on foreclosures or to be put on our Foreclosure Alert.
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