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The percentage of Collin County home foreclosures rose this month compared to last year.
A total of 573 homes in Collin County will be on the August auction block, a figure that rose 43 percent from the 404 homes that were placed on the August 2007 auction block by the July 17, according to statistics released by the Foreclosure Listing Service of Dallas.
Foreclosures so far this year have also risen, but by a much smaller amount. So far this year, Collin County has had 4,149 foreclosed homes while last year saw 3,362 foreclosures during the same annual period, according to statistics.
The numbers might not seen as significant when compared to counties such as Dallas and Tarrant, but foreclosed homes can still have an affect on surrounding properties in their neighborhood, said realtor Cheryl Webb of Keller Williams Realty of Allen.
“The bottom line for me when I look at the numbers is obviously they are moving up and that has a direct impact on the prices of the rest of homes in that area that are not in pre-foreclosure,” Webb said. “It’s even in new home sales because when you start comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges, they all go into the same basket, so to speak.”
Lower priced homes that often spring up after foreclosures can start price wars between people looking to sell their homes, Webb said.
“The surrounding homes have the most negative impact because if somebody can go buy a house in one neighborhood at a significantly lower price than one down the street that they are getting market value for, what’s happening is they will go down the street and purchase that cheaper home, even if it needs a little work or comes with a little more arduous or troublesome process,” Webb said.
John Applegate, member of the North Texas Real Estate Information Service board of directors and past president of the Collin County Association of Realtors, said the numbers may have changed but are still relatively stable compared to other places with wild, fluctuating foreclosure rates due to sub-prime mortgage loans.
“What happens in this market is since we came out of the problems we had in 80s and 90s, we’ve had a steady growth market,” Applegate said. “We never saw speculation in (housing) prices and consequently, we didn’t have speculators in here that were actually bidding up properties higher than they should have gone.”
Terri Ricketts, president of the McKinney Chamber of Commerce, said she expects job growth to continue, which will bring homeowners and brighten the county’s housing rates.
“It’s a big percentage, but think about what the growth of Collin County has been,” Ricketts said. “While the percentage changes from year to year compared to the region are high, our growth numbers compared to the region are also high. Our year-to-date foreclosure rate percentage is considerably less than Denton County’s and in line with the large counties across the region.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com. To post comments online, access this story on the web at www.scntx.com.
