Foreclosures Double in Portland

(Karen Rider (foreground), an agent for a trustee sale officer, conducts an auction of foreclosed homes on the Multnomah County Courthouse steps just inside the building. Photo from the Portald Tribune)

In what should be no surprise to the readers of this blog (since I have covered it previously here), the Portland Tribune reports that foreclosures have doubled in the past year in the Portland area. In August 2007 Portland ranked 332nd out of the 383 largest metropolitan areas. By August 2008 we've moved up to 254th. (source: First American CoreLogic). Over 300 Multnomah county residents have been hit with foreclosure notices, surpassing the peak from the 2001-2002 recession.

Portland is no real-estate basket case like Las Vegas or Phoenix. But the national foreclosure crisis that initially spared Portland has arrived here in a big way, bringing more human suffering and dampening housing prices.

The number of Multnomah County residents in jeopardy of losing their homes has nearly doubled in the last year, based on the number immersed in foreclosure proceedings. Over the spring and summer, 300 Multnomah County homeowners a month got slapped with foreclosure notices – topping the peak levels reached in the last recession of 2001-02.

In August 2007, the Portland area had an enviable 332nd-highest foreclosure rating among the nation’s 383 metropolitan areas. But by August 2008, Portland jumped to 254th-highest, according to First American CoreLogic, which provides real estate data services.

“There’s a shakeout right now, and we’re failing on all cylinders,” said Portland real estate economist Jerry Johnson.

Portland took longer than most cities to emerge from the last recession and didn’t get as overbuilt as other markets, Johnson said.

But Portland home prices kept rising during the last recession, he noted. If banks and besieged homeowners try to dump too many discounted properties, he said, “you could swamp the market and kill the guys who are OK.”

Home prices are sliding in large swaths of the metro area, especially in overbuilt sectors such as Portland’s condo market and suburban Happy Valley. In early October, in the 97086 ZIP code that includes Happy Valley, there were 247 homeowners facing foreclosure on top of 95 homes seized by banks, according to VisionCore, a division of First American CoreLogic.

I encourage you to find the print version if you can, the charts in the print version are not included in the online version. Here are a few stats on the number of foreclosure notices by zip code for 2008:

West
97201: 21
97209: 52
97210: 17
97221: 13

North
97203: 121
97217: 128

NE
97211: 123
97212: 55
97213: 59
97230: 115

SE
97214: 29
97215: 39
97202: 58
97206: 178
97266: 202
97236: 194

So far the foreclosures seem to be hitting the North and the outer NE and SE the worst, which is not surprising given that on average those areas have lower incomes and owners are more likely to be one unfortunate incident away from financial ruin.

I will continue to look for more local data, this is the first data I have seen by zipcode, provided by First American CoreLogic.

Offtopic: Outraged Lehman Brothers' employees blockade the corporate headquarters