Last week headlines started to ring out that foreclosure rates were down across the US. But, those headline stories do a real disservice. The foreclosure crisis was always much worse in some places than others. And, now, while nationally the numbers may look better, in Pennsylvania we aren’t quite there yet.
In one of the articles that does a better job of pointing out the mixed bag: “While foreclosures remain a concern in select states, the number of U.S. homes entering the path to foreclosure or winding up repossessed by lenders has fallen to levels not seen in more than six years.” The article also specifically notes that Pennsylvania is one of the states where the numbers are on the rise. “Foreclosure starts increased last month on an annual basis in 15 states, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Oregon.”
When you start digging into the data available from RealtyTrac (which is the source of most of the data in articles like the one referenced above; and is cited as the source in that article), you see some pretty startling year-over-year numbers for pre foreclosures in Pennsylvania – up 232.6%.
The counties with the highest foreclosure rates right now are: Berks (1 in every 496), Monroe (1 in every 533), Dauphin (1 in every 585), Bucks (1 in every 755), and Lancaster (1 in every 761).
Philadelphia isn’t doing any better. Pre foreclosures in Philadelphia are up 6.3% from October and 299.2% over last November. And, the top five zip codes for foreclosure all have higher rates than the county with the highest rate: 19150 (1 in every 411), 19124 (1 in every 422), 19151 (1 in every 435), 19120 (1 in every 463), and 19137 ), and (1 in every 471).
Pittsburgh’s pre foreclosure numbers are down from October, but still up 165% from last year. And, some of its neighborhoods are still heavily impacted. Each of the five highest impacted zip codes would have made it onto the county list: 15204 (1 in every 416) and 15235 (1 in every 513), 15229 (1 in every 607), 15223 (1 in every 697), and 15214 (1 in every 702).
So, while things may be looking better overall, in Pennsylvania there are still a lot of people here being hurt by foreclosure.