Alabama Homes for Sale

The headline in Alabama is that it has not been hit as hard by foreclosure filings as many other states across the country. Nevada has been heading the polls for 22 straight months now with one in every 74 houses being filed for foreclosure. In Alabama the number of homes affected by the foreclosure crisis is one in every 2,492, which is a lot less, but still provides very little compensation to the neighbourhoods affected by the situation.

The figures for Alabama are also on the downturn compared to last month, in fact there has been a 12% reduction. At the same time last year however figures were 33% lower, so although homeowners may be about to receive a small respite, they are far from out of the storm yet.

The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan area accounts for around a quarter of Alabama and has around 1.8 million residents, and has been the main ground for repossessions and foreclosures. The rise in this specific area was 71% higher in 2008 than the same period in 2097, according to RealtyTrac, a California based realty firm who have been tracking the sub-prime fallout since August 2007.

If the figures are honed in even more closely so that a context can be placed on the situation in Alabama compared to other areas: Madison County has reported 97 homes in foreclosure last month, which is one in every 1,389 homes – that is 233% higher than the same time in 2007. However, if we go over to Las Vegas then the figures are much more dramatic where there were 12,155 foreclosures in one month alone, which is the highest in the US and seven times the national average.

It is thought that there are several reasons for the lower figures in Alabama compared to the rest of the country, not least of which is that with a history of static agricultural heritage, the people of Alabama were not targeted by sub-prime companies in the summer of 2007. The residents of the state have a reputation for being more reserved than many of the areas that are now badly affected such as California and Nevada. The hottest investment opportunities for the sub-prime mortgage lenders was clearly Ohio, California, Nevada and Florida, where the full realisation of the crisis can be seen clearly by the huge numbers of desolate homes scattered throughout all the cities’ neighbourhoods.

There has also been the introduction of legislation to prevent lenders from issuing a Notice to Default without providing a 45 and 30 day notice beforehand. This process has led to a decrease in the number of foreclosure homes for sale as there is direct contact made between the lender and the borrower. All too often, mortgage borrowers bury their heads in the sand in the hope that the problem will go away, and the figures show – the problem only gets worse.