Anyone Seen Where All the Loudoun Foreclosure/Bank-Owned Properties Have Gone?

Two years ago, you couldn’t walk out your front door in Loudoun/Northern Virginia and not see a foreclosure/bank-owned property for sale. But something interesting has been going on for the past 12 months…the number of foreclosure/bank-owned properties on the market has been quickly dwindling.

As of today, there are only 60 active foreclosure/bank-owned properties on the market in Loudoun. That’s a total of only 6 percent of the total existing home inventory on the market in Loudoun County. This is a far cry from what we were seeing in 2007, 2008 and even the beginning of 2009.

How is this possible despite record foreclosure filings throughout the US?

One possible reason is that the bans are holding on to their inventories on purpose. Releasing them all at once would sink the market and the value of all properties (including the ones the bank are holding to) would fall. This means that the overall worth of the properties the banks are holding on to would fall - not something banks or their shareholders want to see.

Another reason may be that the government is buying up these “troubled assets” so that they don’t get released on the market and sink it. Just look at the millions the government is spending buying up Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS).

Will we see a flood of foreclosure/bank-owned properties hit the Loudoun market in the near future?

I’d say “not any time soon” for a variety of reasons including political ones. But I don’t have a crystal ball so don’t take what I say to the bank.

Either way, the majority of homes on the market in Loudoun and Northern Virignia in general are short-sales and traditional resales. Practically speaking, this means that buyers who need to settle within 30 to 90 days have pretty much only traditional resales to choose from (blog post on this coming next week).

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