Foreclosures Are Up In County, But Nothing Like Urban Areas

By Tammy Gray-Searles
   While Navajo County generally felt only the smaller shockwaves of the decimation of the housing market in Phoenix last year, it appears that the state’s economic freefall is finally hitting home, literally.
   According to RealtyStore, a company that tracks foreclosures across the nation, foreclosure rates in Navajo County during the month of May jumped by 250 percent when compared to May 2008, and by 178 percent when compared to May 2007.
   Percentage-wise, the numbers are not as bleak as those out of Pima County, where some experts are cautiously predicting that the Tucson housing market is improving. Foreclosures in Pima County in May 2009 were up by 223 percent over those in May 2007.
   Since the numbers only include foreclosures for the month of May, they provide only a small snapshot of the year. Statistics for April were released, but numbers for the entire year were not available.
   RealtyStore Marketing Manager Greg Churilov reported that in Navajo County there were a total of 161 foreclosures in May of this year. In May 2008, there were 46 foreclosures and in May 2007, a total of 58. Foreclosures in May of this year were up over those in April by about 38 percent, when there were a total of 117 foreclosures.
   Overall for April 2009, foreclosures were up over previous years, with 89 percent more foreclosures than in 2008, and 327 percent more than in 2007. In April 2008, there were 62 foreclosures and in April 2007, there were 26.
   With a population of about 113,796 people, according to a 2007 estimate by the Arizona Department of Commerce, Navajo County falls right in between the number of people living in Apache County and those in Coconino County. According to the Department of Commerce, Apache County has a population of 75,496, and Coconino County, 134,898. The foreclosure picture in Navajo County’s neighboring counties, however, is starkly different.
   In April 2009, Apache County had a total of only five foreclosures, a decrease from the seven in 2008 and the eight in 2007. In Coconino County, however, foreclosures in April were up by 1,263 percent since 2007. Coconino County had 259 foreclosures during the month of April in 2009, 40 in 2008 and only 19 in 2007. Between 2008 and 2009, foreclosures for April rose by 548 percent.
   Churilov noted that even some of the least populated counties of Arizona are being hit hard by foreclosures if you look at the percentages. Graham County, for example, with an estimated population of 37,338, experienced a 675 percent increase in foreclosures when comparing April 2009 and April 2007. In 2007, there were four foreclosures in Graham County. In 2009, there were 31.
   According to Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s office, current foreclosure rates in Arizona are the fourth highest in the country. Arizona has climbed to that dubious distinction from the eighth highest rate in the nation in 2007. In 2008, the reported foreclosure rate in Arizona was 44.9 per 1,000 homes. In January 2009, RealtyTrac, another company that compiles foreclosure information, put Arizona’s foreclosure rate at one per 182 homes, ranking it third in the nation, just behind Nevada and California. In the years leading up to the economic downturn, Arizona had been neck and neck with Nevada in population growth.
   Kirkpatrick’s office recently announced federal funding for Arizona to “help state housing finance agencies spur stalled rental projects” to help get displaced families back in homes, but Kirkpatrick’s press secretary, Joe Katz, acknowledged that the situation is looking worse instead of better.
   “The crisis is in fact still deepening in the state’s rural areas,” he wrote. “According to leading foreclosure tracker RealtyStore, ‘areas previously unaffected by the real-estate downturn…are now showing record increases in the number of foreclosures.’”