Published: November 06, 2009 10:58 pm      

Home foreclosures down 50 percent

Decrease may signalize a stabilizing market

Home foreclosures in Howard County are decreasing after sheriff’s sales spiked during the summer.

It was good news for local real estate experts Friday, the same day Congress passed an extension on the first-time home buyers tax credit.

The Howard County Sheriff Department reported 44 foreclosures for November, and it expects 41 for December, Sheriff Marty Talbert said.

Those numbers are down by about half after the sheriff’s department reported 83 foreclosures in July; one of those listings included more than 50 lots and tracts in the Preserve at Bridgewater subdivision on Center Road.

“It has slowed down a little bit,” Talbert said. “And I’m not sure what the real answer here is, whether we reached a holiday time period. It’s pretty hard to throw somebody out of a house right around Christmas.”

The average number of mortgage foreclosures per month is also down this year, compared to the previous two years.

According to the Howard County Clerk’s Office, banks have filed 662 foreclosures with the courts in the county so far this year, an average of 55.2 per month.

Last year, banks, on average, foreclosed on 69.2 mortgages per month and 71.8 per month the year before.

The decrease in foreclosures could mean good news for home sellers and real estate companies, according to some local real estate experts.

Kathy Harbaugh, executive vice president for the Realtors Association of Central Indiana, said the decrease in foreclosures is one sign the area’s housing market is stabilizing.

“I think that probably the decline in foreclosures is that we’ve gotten, finally, past that period of high foreclosure,” Harbaugh said. “It is starting to stabilize the housing market to something we’re more used to.”

Jeannie Kuhn, a sales associate for Re/Max Real Estate One in Kokomo, said she expects property values to increase after the number of foreclosures caused decreases in many areas.

“For one, there’s the mind set that this should be the price‚ [for all homes] when people are buying at a foreclosure price,” Kuhn said.

Many homes sat on or remain on the market because foreclosure sales have attracted a lot of buyers looking for lower prices, she said.

“If we can swing this in another direction, we’ll be in better shape,” she said.

The local housing market began lifting itself from stagnancy in October after Congress enacted the first-time home buyer’s tax credit, worth up to $8,000.

Harbaugh and Kuhn said the housing market could see another jolt because Congress passed an extension on the tax credit.

The extension increased the income cap and included repeat buyers at a reduced credit. It also extended the deadline from Nov. 30 to April 30. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill this weekend.

Harbaugh said the tax credit extension, which benefits buyers, combined with the decrease in foreclosures, which benefits sellers, could “create a perfect storm” by playing off each other to return the housing market to what it once was.

“When you have an active market, everybody wins,” she said. “With the sellers, more buyers in the market could result in a better pricing in the homes. It’s too early to tell. We don’t know how many [the tax credit] will draw in.”

• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com