Arkansas Foreclosure Numbers Drop in May

June 19th, 2008 | Tags: Foreclosure Crisis

In Arkansas during May the foreclosure numbers dropped by 10% compared to May 2007. Last month 1,240 houses in Arkansas were in foreclosure that calculated to a foreclosure rate of 1:1,027. Arkansas now ranks 24th in the country. The term foreclosure includes all the stages of the judicial process covering default and auction notices to bank repossessions. It seems that the foreclosure crisis is stabilizing in this state. Kathy Deck of University of Arkansas commented, ‘it looks like, for the state, that we haven’t really seen any significant increases in foreclosures’ during the last few months. Bill Roehrenbeck of Arvest Mortgage Company – a division of Arvest Bank, echoed these sentiments. He explained that the default figures have been holding steady and are much less than the national statistics. Most probably this is because Arkansas did not witness any abnormal increase in real estate prices. Thus there has been no significant drop as has happened in most of the other parts of the country. In Northwest Arkansas there has been a slight fall in the real estate market because here there are too many houses. The drop is not due to unemployment or fall in population figures.

The Arkansas foreclosure figures have been more or less the same each month through this year of 2008. In January, February, March, April and May there were 1,172, 1,393, 1,210, 1,114 and 1,240 foreclosures respectively. The highest concentration was in Benton County where the foreclosure rate calculated to 1:283 in May. It was followed by Washington County with 1:430. In these two counties there have been significant increase in foreclosure numbers. 38% of all the Arkansas foreclosures were concentrated in these two regions. In May there were 286 and 186 foreclosures in Benton and Washington counties respectively. In Pulaski County foreclosure numbers have decreased. In May there were 211 foreclosures – 17% less from the state’s figures.

In May across the country foreclosures high jumped by 48% in comparison to May 2007. This is the 29th running month marking an increase. In comparison to April, foreclosures in May shot up 7% nationally. May saw 261,255 foreclosures calculating to a rate of 1:483. Nearly 700,000 units failed to be sold at auctions and were repossessed by the bankers who are desperately trying to sell them anyhow at heavy discounted prices. In May the top ranking foreclosure offender was Nevada with a rate of 1:118.