Ohio has seen 11 straight months of year-over-year decreases in foreclosure activity, said Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac spokesman. However, September marks three-straight months of year-over-year increases in Butler County, according to RealtyTrac.
Before that, Butler County had a big string of decreases from January 2010 to December 2010, Blomquist said.
“It make me think in a sense Butler County may be a little bit ahead of the pattern we’re seeing nationwide,” he said.
The biggest surge of foreclosures in Butler County was in late 2008 throughout 2009, peaking in September 2010 with 729 foreclosure filings in one month, according to RealtyTrac.
“For this foreclosure cycle, it’s past the peak. But we still have this sawtooth problem of ups and downs because the underlying issues haven’t gotten away,” he said.
High unemployment is an underlying issue, he said.
RealtyTrac experts believe the drop-offs seen nationwide and in Montgomery and Warren counties is due mostly to paperwork problems lenders had to resolve after the so-called robosigning scandal that peaked in October 2010. Several large banks temporarily halted foreclosures a year ago, after admitting that some employees had been signing thousands of foreclosure documents without verifying the information.
But officials with the Butler County Clerk of Courts said the county is on a downward trend, not an upward one.
The Clerk of Courts records foreclosure lawsuits filed for failure to pay property taxes or mortgages.
Foreclosures in Butler County have been flat with 2,998 foreclosure cases filed in 2008, 3,158 in 2009 and 3,165 last year, said Carolyn Johnson, the county Clerk of Courts legal division office manager. This year, 2,025 cases have been filed, Johnson aid.
The new potential jobs losses at Butler County Job & Family Services and SMART Papers put more homeowners at risk, Johnson said.
“September next year they could be sky high, you don’t know,” Johnson said.
Joe Palacio, a real estate agent for Real Estate Professionals in Liberty Twp., said he believes Butler County’s still high foreclosure rates are due to a combination of job losses, faster processing in Butler County than other counties, a batch of option adjustable rate mortgages that came due in July and declining home values.
“The bigger picture is there’s no employment,” said Palacio, who specializes in distressed properties. “If you don’t have any income, period, they’re (lenders) not willing to help.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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