Report: Local, State Foreclosure Filings Increase

Residential foreclosure filings declined nationwide in September. But here in the Upstate, the statistics were not so rosy.

In September, filings increased six percent in the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley metro area, up 12.42 percent in South Carolina from August — and were up 77.32 percent and 31.90 percent, respectively, from a year ago, the Greenville News reported.  

Meantime, the rate of filings nationally decreased seven percent from August, and were down 16 percent from September 2011, the paper said, citing the latest report from RealtyTrac. 

A RealtyTrac executive said the state's foreclosure trend is worsening. South Carolina's foreclosure rate is now the 10th highest in the nation, vice president Daren Blomquist told the News.

“This is in part due to a longer judicial foreclosure process in South Carolina that has allowed a backlog of foreclosures to build up over the past two years,” Blomquist said. “In addition, the struggling economy and high unemployment rate in South Carolina is adding more fuel to the foreclosure fire in the state.” 

A foreclosure filing — default notice, scheduled auctions, and bank repossession — was reported on one in every 582 housing units in the Greenville metro area in September. Statewide, a filing was reported on one in every 2,488 housing units, the RealtyTrac report said. 

Toby Brown, a certified housing counselor with the Greenville Human Relations Commission, told the newspaper a foreclosure clinic held last month has his office "overflowing" with applications for assistance.

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