Foreclosures Fall in Most of Top U.S. Metro Areas

 The declines in some big metro areas, however, reflected government efforts to stem foreclosures and did not indicate that the tide of foreclosures has turned, RealtyTrac said.

 The Sun Belt continued to lead in foreclosures, with four Sun Belt states accounting for all of the 20 metropolitan areas with the highest rates in the first quarter, the real estate data company said.

 But the majority of those top metro areas, with populations over 200,000, reported decreasing foreclosure activity compared with the first quarter of 2009, RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, California, said.

 California accounted for 10 out of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates, followed by Florida with seven, Nevada with two, and Arizona with one, RealtyTrac said in a quarterly report.

Foreclosure activity declined on a year-over-year basis in eight of 10 biggest metro areas.

"The decreasing foreclosure activity in some of the nation's top foreclosure hot spots in the first quarter is largely the result of government intervention and other non-market influences, and not a sure signal that those areas are out of the woods yet when it comes to foreclosures," James J. Saccacio, chief executive of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

He said a federal government program designed to encourage short sales, which was launched April 5, may have caused delays in the initiation of some foreclosures.

In a short sale, a lender agrees to accept a sales price that is less than the amount owed on a mortgage.

RealtyTrac said 77 percent of large U.S. metropolitan areas posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity.

via cnbc.com

Commentary:

In reviewing this data from Realty Trac, the headline, while interesting is again fairly irrelevant for the Saint Louis real estate market.   We continue to see low overall volumes of foreclosures and short sales for sale in the St Louis housing market.