Click to enlarge photos.By Ashley Hungerford
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
MARIETTA - The crowd on the courthouse steps on Tuesday was there to watch and bid on more than 700 properties in Cobb being sold at a foreclosure auction. Next month's foreclosure sale will likely be just as crowded.
Today, there are 629 notices published in the Marietta Daily Journal for the June 3 foreclosure sale. Legal notices must appear on four consecutive Fridays before a property can be sold at auction. The next sale will be June 3 on the Cobb County courthouse steps. Sales begin at 10 a.m. the first Tuesday of each month.
The numbers of ads beginning today for June sale is up more than 26 percent from May 2007, when there were 461 ads published.
Foreclosure numbers across the country continue to be the highest in years, in Cobb and around the country.
In 2008, there have been 3,332 notices published in Cobb - 1,000 more than last year. Those figures may include some notices that were cancelled after being submitted to the Journal.
Dr. Roger Tutterow, a professor of economics at Mercer University, said the Cobb foreclosures are mirroring metro-Atlanta. But he said the county will recover.
"Cobb has the advantage of being a stable economy, a stable mortgage market and the county hasn't lost any major employers," Tutterow said.
The foreclosure crisis has several factors, Tutterow said.
The first is adjustable-rate mortgages, Tutterow said. He said homeowners are facing "sticker shock," as their monthly mortgage payments jump as interest rates increase.
And, "with the slowing economy, we're not seeing the wage and employment gains like in years past," he said.
But the real wild card, Tutterow said, is the increase in oil prices.
The cost of gasoline can have a dramatic effect on homeowners who do not have much disposable income.
"It can cause households to make difficult decisions between cutting other discretionary spending or falling behind on their mortgages," Tutterow said. The latter means more foreclosures.
"The higher foreclosure is dumping a lot of product back on the market, putting off the time when new construction will pick back up," he said.
Is there an end in sight?
"It will be well into 2009 until it starts to feel like it's time to start pounding nails," he said.
ahungerford@mdjonline.com
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Posted Comments
Oil companies should be feeling a lot of guilt for putting families out of their homes. You have to put gas in your car to get to work!! Someday it will all come back to them when no one can buy their expensive gas. Everything costs more because of higher gas prices. What will happen this winter with heating oil?
I invented a special gadget I put on my engine that let's me use water instead of gasoline to run my car. I figure with all the money I am saving, I can buy everyones home after they foreclose...