How do you find out how many foreclosures are near you?

One quick way is to look at the Yahoo link for foreclosures in your area. Just put in your zip code and it will tell you how many foreclosures in your zip.

There are a lot in our area and home prices are indeed suffering.

A recent story published in Memphis Business Journal found that there was one foreclosure for every 1.06 homes sold in 2006 in the Memphis MSA. Specifically, there were 19,738 homes sold in 2006, and there were 18,155 residential foreclosures last year."

Here is a link that might be useful: Foreclosures at yahoo

well, in my entire city there are 3 according to Yahoo, and all 3 are inthe slums section of town over 5 miles from me.

According to Yahoo:

6 in my zip
571 w/in 5 miles of my zip
1115 w/in 10 miles of my zip

That excludes the commercial properties...but I live in a high-density area.

The number is probably higher. Yahoo (RealtyTrac?) reports only 115 in the zip code next to mine. The actual number is approaching 300 according to the local government.

Residential foreclosure prices range from $1.4 million to $75,000

22 in my zip code. A couple appear to be land only. Can banks foreclose on land purchases? Didn't know that. Prices range from $12,500 to $174,000. The $12,500 has no SF, bedrooms, or bathrooms, so that would indicate to me it's land only.

Interesting. I just attended the Sheriff's Foreclosure sale in our area today. The Yahoo site is interesting, but not at all updated for our area.

Out of the list of properties that were on the schedule to be auctioned, I'd say a good 35%-40% were pulled from the list at the last minute. Some days before, some this morning, and others right at the auction.

Out of the remaining properties, I'd estimate that 90% of them went back to the lender. A few folks got some deals, but for the most part the lenders outbid any takers and reclaimed the properties. I'm sure I'll be seeing them on the MLS soon, listed for just under market value.

Around here the bank-owned homes go on the market for just about normal market value. They don't pull down the value of surrounding properties too much, because they're still listed pretty high, and usually sell quickly.

Four in my zip code (one vacant land), 13 in the next zip code over ( four are vacant land), last date added November 12th. Not a big foreclosure area, never was, doubtful it ever will be. Median household income is fairly high, housing is very affordable. Five of the most affordable towns (income ratio to housing price) in the US are located within 20 miles.

I guess I am screwed! 459 in my town and 959 when I go 5 miles out. Last I heard from the local media (which is about every day) its 1 in 670 homes are in some state of foreclosure. I guess if I do the 1% math, I would need to write someone a check to take my house. But at least my home went up in value on zillow! LOL

According to Yahoo there are 0 foreclosures in our zip code and town. Two in the town to our southeast, 5 in the town to our northeast. The closest foreclosure is over 4 miles from us.

There are 62 in my town, 10 in my immediate neighborhood and three on my block. I only searched from $100k to $150k. That is for the town of the house I have rented out as a rent-to-own at $139k.

Scary, huh?

There are only 41 foreclosures in my current zip code for homes $20k either side of the cost of the house we live in now. One foreclosure is in this neighborhood. My current zipcode probably has 10 times the number of houses that the old zipcode has, too.

I think I heard that 1 in 33 homes in our metro area is in some stage of foreclosure. One house I kept an eye on started out for sale in the spring of 2006 at $750,000 - one of the most expensive homes in the area. It is now bank owned and they are asking $319,000, and still it sits. I understand that it was overpriced at $750,000, but it has got to be a bargain now.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bargain

611 in my zip
1177 w/in 5 miles

The city has a population of around 80,000.

2126 foreclosures within a 15 mile radius. I am in SW Florida - and that is all there is in the newspaper each day - the doom and gloom.... I am sure I am building a house that will not be worth what I paid when I am done. Probably would have been smarter buying a home and renovating, but unfortunately - that is the story of my life (DH likes to buy, fix and sell). We just built a house in another state last year, but decided to return to FL because of family... but I HAD to have new, as I just left my dream house and couldn't find anything on the market that made my heart beat!

It sure is depressing seeing this though...

Yahoo lists some 16 homes in foreclosure in my zip. There is one that was tax (!) appraised at $500k - which is a LOT for my zip - that is for sale for $250k. That'll drag down values!

Which I actually hope it does. I plan to live in my mortgage-free home for the rest of my life or rebuild on site and would love to have its value shrink so that I pay less property taxes.

There are 2 foreclosures in my zipcode. There are 8 more going out five miles.

We just got our new, much anticipated, property tax assessment Wednesday. In CT, we are assessed at 70% of FMV. Our assessment has jumped 92% since the last assessment in 2002. The effective assessment date is October 27, 2007 so it picked-up price declines since our peak in mid-2005. The new mil rate won't be released until 2008. Here's hoping it drops significantly!

Even the assessment on our boat slip nearly doubled & I don't think that's accurate but it's going to be hard to prove since few slips have changed hands in the past four years & none recently. Also, no foreclosures of slips.

/tricia

jrldh, i think you get confused with price depreciation and property taxes...If values decline, your property taxes don't follow that decline...Just as when a town does a townwide revaluation, if your value increases,likley the tax rate decreases, and in a perfect world, you'll see no significant tax increase..In the reverse, if your home declines in value, either no action is taken, or the tax rate would increase, if the whole town was revalued..

qdognj: My property is assessed at 98% of what I paid last year. If comparables go down in my neighborhood, I'll be at the appraisal district office during the yearly appraisal cycle disputing my assessment.

Generally speaking, your property taxes would go down only if your house's value fell a greater percentage than other houses. Assuming all properties fall an approximately equal amount (by %) then there is no reduction in taxes unless the town cuts spending.

Wow!!! I don't know how up-to-date the list is, but my zip alone has 855 foreclosures! Our city has 92,000+ population. Did I tell you that I live in Southern California? Riverside county to be exact. Surprise, surprise...

I don't know how current the list is either, but the foreclosure my son bought in March isn't on the list and the foreclosure 2 doors down that sold two months ago isn't on the list.

0 in our zip code, 9 w/in 5 miles (at least 2 are commercial properties and/or vacant land). Once you go 10 miles out, the number leaps to 153, but you're comparing apples to oranges. That number includes properties within a major metropolitan area. Our zip code is home to nearly 30K people and 9K homes.In adjacent comparable zips, there are also single digit foreclosures most of which are commercial.

There are over sixty of them in my zip alone, and it's a small city. Like I told one other gal, they're not slums but are all over the board from million dollar homes to some one could now buy with money they'd keep in their personal checking accounts at no interest.

My gut feeling is that we have a couple more years to go before we start to level out, and that's given no other major influences than the stinky mortgages being resolved. The likelihood of other negative influences, however, I think are moderately high.

On the low end of the spectrum here, some rents are slightly more to almost double what a mortgage for an equivalent property would be.The rents here have not started to sink in proportion to the property devaluation. They will though, until they hit the level where relying on a bunch of rentals is not going to be a "good place" to be.And whomever owns a slew of them are going to be stuck with them.

This is a great time for anyone looking for a first home who has a secure job and isn't afraid to invest a modicum of sweat equity. It's also a good time to buy cheap and build equity slowly, if one is willing to live in their purchase for four or five years. It's not a good time for flippers and nobody, except those who own a chunk of their home in equity or outright is going to come out of it smelling like roses. And it really stinks for those who bought at the peak and had to stretch when they did it.

I just checked our MLS sites a few days ago and was dumbfounded with all the cheap properties listed. They weren't there a few weeks ago, and I'm guessing they are the latest batch homes people lost.

jrldh: "...would love to have its value shrink so that I pay less property taxes."

qdognj: "jrldh, i think you get confused with price depreciation and property taxes...If values decline, your property taxes don't follow that decline..."

jrldh: "qdognj: My property is assessed at 98% of what I paid last year. If comparables go down in my neighborhood, I'll be at the appraisal district office during the yearly appraisal cycle disputing my assessment."

Jrldh, you missed qdognj's point. If property values go down, the town/city/county will raise the rate upon which the houses are taxed so that their revenue does not decrease. Hypothetically, and to deal in round numbers, if a town has 50,000 property owners, and each house in the town is valued/assessed at $100,000, and the town's tax rate is 1% of FMV, then each homeowner pays $1,000 and the town gets $50 million dollars in which to use to provide services. Now, let's assume house prices drop 20% and your new assessment is only $80k instead of $100k. Well, in lieu of the town continuing to tax you at 1% of $80,000 which would result in the town's income dropping to $40 million from $50million, the town instead will raise its tax rate from 1% to 1.25% so that their income will remain the same. In other words, rather than pay 1% property tax on a home valued at $100,000, you would now pay a 1.25% property tax on a home valued at 80,000. You would still be paying $1000 in property tax even though the value of your home has decreased by 20%.

That is the point that qdognj was trying to make. Current homeowners do not benefit from declining home values. In fact, the opposite ends up being true because once property values start to rise again, you are paying taxes at the higher 1.25% rate which results in a windfall for the city/county and they are much more reluctant to lower the rate in that circumstance. They usually just end up increasing spending instead.

Exactly! What is happening in my state, and it's going to be an interesting show to watch, is that the state is trying to shift the burden of taxation from homeowners to corporate taxation for things like school funding (traditionally that fee lay heavily on those who were real estate holders).

At the same time, we have a huge program to lure corporations (jobs) to the state and one of the carrots is tax exemptions, and most companies try to extend that one in perpetuity or threaten to close and move.

But one thing you can be sure of, is that the municipalities will maintain some sort of source for their income and it's always going to be a greater demand than the year before.

My parents were married during the depression. They were both fortunate enough to have stable, but modestly paying jobs. It got to the point the banks were aggressively soliciting wage earners to buy up properties they'd forclosed upon. Not only did my folks buy a house in that situation, they made the down payment on another house for a relative because it was the perfect time to "buy".

Wow, 160 in my zip alone, and 2067 within 5 miles. I live in Orange County, California. That's...mind-boggling.