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Foreclosure sales up in county
Published 06:57 a.m., December 16, 2009
Sales of foreclosed homes in Otter Tail County have already surpassed last year’s total, with more sales pending in the next two weeks.
Authorities with the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office had sold 112 foreclosed homes in 2009 as of Tuesday, according to Marcia Thompson, civil processing clerk. The total for 2008 was 108, up from 89 the year prior.
The sheriff’s office was actually behind the trend over the summer as homeowners working to retain their properties postponed sales. Weekly auctions outside the courthouse often had six to seven homes scheduled for sale, with less than half completed.
Back then, Thompson said it seemed mortgage companies were showing more lenience toward postponements if homeowners were working toward a solution. Now it appears many homeowners have run out of time.
“I think all of these postponements are catching up,” Thompson said Tuesday.
Thompson said she’s seen an increase in sales in the last quarter of 2009. It’s not uncommon to have up to 13 sales scheduled for a given week, she said. Eighteen were scheduled for Dec. 3, though only seven were completed.
Sales are still scheduled for Dec. 17, Dec. 30 and Dec. 31, Thompson said. This Thursday’s auction is expected to include eight homes, though that number could change in the next couple of days.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) estimates that an increase of 5.5 million unemployed people over the past year has increased the rate of new foreclosures from 1.07 percent to 1.42 percent. The combined percentage of loans in foreclosure or at least one payment past due was at 14 percent, non-seasonally adjusted, at the end of the third quarter, according to the MBA’s delinquincy survey.
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