Did any of you read the Bellingham Herald on January 15th? On the front page an article titled, “Foreclosure filings in Whatcom County lowest since 2006” made its debut. I recommend reading the entire article. ( I put the link at the bottom). The article does a great job of showing how far we have come since 2006 and what we should expect to see in 2015 as far as selling foreclosed homes.
The articled read, “The number of foreclosure filings in Whatcom County totaled 314 in 2014, according to RealtyTrac, a national online database of real estate property. That’s the lowest annual total since 2006, matching a national trend.”(Gallagher, D 2015)
Gallagher saysthat there are still some vacant homes around the county. He is calling them “zombie” homes that have sat empty just waiting for the right time to be put up for sale.
He then goes on to quote RealtyTrac’s Vice president, Daren Blomquist who says“A recent surge in foreclosure starts and scheduled foreclosure auctions in several states in the last few months of 2014 indicate that lenders are gearing up for a spring cleaning of deferred distress in the first half of 2015,” My guess is that since the foreclosure rates seem to finally be going down and the market seems to be going to back to normal that banks feel that it is finally “safe” to start selling some of their inventory.