Area foreclosure actions up in April

Thanks to a more than 19% spike in foreclosure actions in Sebastian County, the metro area saw an overall increase of 2.96% in the number of properties in a foreclosure action during April, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.

In Arkansas, properties in foreclosure during April totaled 2,042, down from the 2,002 in April 2010. Oklahoma foreclosure actions totaled 1,351 in April, down from the 1,992 in April 2010.

Nationwide, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac said foreclosure actions — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 219,258 U.S. properties in the first quarter, a 34% dip from April 2010. The report also shows one in every 593 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the quarter.

“Foreclosure activity decreased on an annual basis for the seventh straight month in April, bringing foreclosure activity to a 40-month low,” James Saccacio, RealtyTrac CEO, said in a statement. “This slowdown continues to be largely the result of massive delays in processing foreclosures rather than the result of a housing recovery that is lifting people out of foreclosure.”

Saccacio said info from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that about 3.7 million properties are in the “seriously delinquent stage” because of paperwork delays.

“The first delay occurs between delinquency and foreclosure, when lenders and services are no longer automatically pushing loans that are more than 90 days delinquent into foreclosure but are waiting longer to allow for loan modifications, short sales and possibly other disposition alternatives,” Saccacio explained.

Nationwide, foreclosures completed (REOs) in the first quarter of 2011 took an average of 400 days from the initial default notice to the REO, up from 340 days in the first quarter of 2010 and more than double the average 151 days it took to foreclose in the first quarter of 2007, according to the RealtyTrac data.

Lenders foreclosed on 69,532 U.S. properties in April, down 5 percent from March and down 25 percent from April 2010, but bank repossessions (REOs) were still above a 22-month low hit in February 2011.

FORT SMITH REGION
The report from RealtyTrac shows that 139 properties in the Fort Smith region (Crawford, Franklin, Logan and Sebastian counties in Arkansas; LeFlore and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma) were placed in a foreclosure action during April, up 2.96% compared to the 135 properties in the 2010 period.

The number of Fort Smith area properties in a foreclosure action during the first three months of 2011 totaled 407, down more than 20% compared to the 2010 period.

Crawford County had 31 properties in foreclosure during April, down 13.8% compared to April 2010. Sebastian County saw a 19.4% increase with 80 foreclosure properties compared to 67 in April 2010.

Foreclosure actions in the region have increased four consecutive years. In the Fort Smith metro area, there were 1,556 properties in foreclosure action in 2010, 1,335 properties in 2009, compared to 1,084 in 2008 and just 588 in 2007.

FORT SMITH AREA FIGURES (Properties in the foreclosure process)
Crawford County
April 2011: 31
April 2010: 36

Franklin County
April 2011: 5
April 2010: 1

Logan County
April 2011: 4
April 2010: 7

Sebastian County
April 2011: 80
April 2010: 67

Leflore County
April 2011: 16
April 2010: 22

Sequoyah County
April 2011: 3
April 2010: 2