The Denver metro area recorded 13,412 foreclosures in the first six months of 2007, up 40 percent from 9,574 in the first half of 2006. Foreclosures rose 62 percent in Denver, 50 percent in Adams and 41 percent in Douglas counties in the first half compared with the same period a year ago.
At the current pace, about 3.6 percent of all owner-occupied homes in the metro area will end up in foreclosure this year, not far from the record 3.8 percent of homes that entered foreclosure in 1988.
Big differences exist in the economies of the two periods, however. Employment growth is 1.9 percent in the metro area and unemployment was 3.8 percent in June.
In the late 1980s, thousands left the state after a slump in the oil-and-gas industry hit the economy hard.
Metro-area builders have responded to the current housing downturn by slowing construction. Builders sold 5,842 homes in the first half of the year, a third fewer than the 8,758 sold in the same period a year ago.
“There have been significant layoffs among homebuilders,” said Jeffrey Willis, an executive vice president with Berkeley Homes in Aurora. “We haven’t seen anyone shut down. They have scaled way back with their projects.”
Despite that ratcheting down, the inventory of unsold new homes was 3,632, up 3.8 percent from last year.
Nearly one of every five new- home sales is getting canceled as buyers back out of contracts. Visits to new developments were at their lowest level since 1994.
Permits for future homes are down 29 percent, while available lots for detached homes skyrocketed to a 40-month supply from a 27-month supply a year ago.
The existing-home market was holding up better, with sales down 2.9 percent in the first half. The amount of time to sell homes now on the market remained stubbornly high at 7.2 months, while prices were flat.
Posted by:
Jeffery McClintock
Categories:
Real Estate Market
Mortgages
