Over the last few weeks, St. Louis newspapers continue to promote scare tactic headlines on the foreclosure crisis.
Buyers reading the stories think the sky is falling. They think there must be a ton of foreclosed homes on the market and assume that they should be able to steal a home from a desperate seller.
So how bad is it really?
In June, there were 3,452 Foreclosure Filings in Missouri and 860 properties that became Bank Owned. With 2,592,809 households in Missouri, the true foreclosure rate is only 0.033% of households…LESS than 1% of properties!
In the US, there are 1,254,521,886 households. With 252,363 foreclosure filings and only 71,563 newly Bank Owned properties, the national foreclosure rate for the entire country for June was only 0.057% of households.
I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem…especially for families that are losing their homes…but clearly the local media is failing to tell the whole story.
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Possibly Related Posts:
- PMI Report – St. Louis Market Update
- St. Louis Region Market Report: January – June 2008 (Part 3)
- The Truth about Foreclosure Rates
- Don’t Believe Everything You Hear in the News: Foreclosure Reports Can Be Misleading
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You do have a point that it is less than 1%, but it is still sad to think 860 people lost their homes and over 2500 more are close to it!
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I agree completely. It is sad if only 1 family lost their home. It’s terrible for that family. But, there are always families that make choices to purchase beyond their means, or have unexpected circumstances that result in financial distress. That doesn’t mean that the vast majority are having problems.
My concern is that the media is making the problem worse by continuing to hammer out a story that the real estate market is in a foreclosure crisis. Yes there are people in trouble. Some cities and states actually do have a foreclosure crisis. But Missouri (and the majority of the country) isn’t in a crisis. The situation is worsened when buyers hear it is a scary time to buy and opt not to purchase. With no one out there to buy the homes on the market, sellers are in a much more dire situation.
I just wish they media would put the story in perspective.