Foreclosure rate up 122% Raleigh/Cary (Franklin: days on market, for sale, real estate)

[NC man]

This does not support the hype of endless jobs and low living at its best. Foreclosure Rate Soars 122% in Raleigh-Cary, Study Shows :: WRAL.com (broken link)

[mommiewrites]

Scary Stuff.

Really though, it will be good- it was time for the market to correct itself.

I just feel bad for the families that are losing their homes.

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

Originally Posted by NC man

This does not support the hype of endless jobs and low living at its best. Foreclosure Rate Soars 122% in Raleigh-Cary, Study Shows :: WRAL.com (broken link)

Low cost of living and having a good job don't amount to a hill of beans if you bought a house that was beyond your means.

One doesn't necissarily have anything to do with the other.

[goat1of2]

Statistics can be misleading. What is the actual rate of foreclosures? The article says:

almost 1% of households in Raleigh/Cary are in foreclosure proceedings.

I don't know what the "normal" rate of foreclosure is, but 1 out of every 100 homes sounds like a darn lot to me.

[convergent]

I don't think this has anything to do with the job market. I think this was purely agressive mortgage companies that were leading people into impossible situations by encouraging them to take on debt that they probably knew they'd never be able to pay back when the rates corrected from all time lows. I doubt that most of these people are losing their homes because they lost their jobs, but rather because the mortgage payment they could barely make in the first place was increased a substantial amount.

[miamiblue]

Originally Posted by North_Raleigh_Guy

Low cost of living and having a good job don't amount to a hill of beans if you bought a house that was beyond your means.

NRG: the Dr. Seuss of economics!

Not to mention it is correct. While COL and jobs are sometimes tied to foreclosures, in the current economic climate it has more to do with bad lending practices and people biting off more than they can chew.

Yep, the mortgage companies were offering some pretty crappy deals disguised as 'bargains', but once again: caveat emptor! If it looks too good to be true, it most likely is! The borrowers are just as responsible for their situations as the lenders, by not educating themselves on what they were getting into with such a huge financial decision.

[lovemaine]

When we went to the bank to get pre-qualified for a mortgage 2 years ago, we were approved for a crazy amount, way beyond what we wanted to spend. We ended up buying a much more reasonably priced house, which I'm so grateful for now.

[jln69]

I really wish the media and N&0 would stop reporting these doom and gloom stories that give people the wrong impression and lead them thinking down the wrong path. I think it gives them a false sense of the area. The jobs are still good here. The Real Estate Market is still one of the better markets in the country despite days on market climbing a bit. The cost of living is still relatively low compared to other parts of the country.

Things will sour if they don't stop reporting things like this, IMO.

[KCfromNC]

Why would anyone be opposed to the media publishing factual information? Just because there are no positive stats for real estate (aside from "we're still better than southern CA") doesn't mean that reporting them truthfully is unbalanced or unfair. Despite the NAR's latest bit of propaganda, this isn't a media created problem. It's an affordability problem, as the skyrocketing number of foreclosures shows.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is just Raleigh-Cary stats - i.e. Wake, Johnson & Franklin Counties. Wake only has about 8000 homes currently for sale, Johnson about 2K, and I don't know about Franklin, but it probably doesn't match even Johnson. So assume 12K for sale in the area. Adding nearly 4K foreclosures to the mix will be significant.

And we still have 4-5 years of ARM interest rate resets to go, where people's low introductory rates turn into unaffordable monthly payments.

[HollyMarshall]

The cost of living may still be lower here, but IMO, there's a nasty social climate here that lulls people into believing that living beyond your means is normal. I'm just flabbergasted that people still think it's ok to pay 50% of their take home pay for a mortgage just to get into the swankiest subdivision. We're going to see a lot more foreclosures and if I had the money, I'd invest in rental properties because where else are all these people going to go? There aren't enough affordable places to live because they built all these McMansion subdivisions when that's what everyone wanted.