Metro Atlanta’s foreclosure problem keeps getting worse.
The number of foreclosure notices this month — 12,568 — set a new record for metro Atlanta, according to data just released by Equity Depot.
Foreclosure notices in the 13-county metro area jumped 22 percent when compared with February and 24 percent compared with March of last year, Alpharetta-based Equity Depot said.
This month’s number also is greater than the previous monthly record of 12,318 notices, set in September of last year.
Barry Bramlett, president of Equity Depot, said in an e-mail that the number of foreclosures is “obviously impacted by both the lingering sub-prime [mortgage] mess and [the] economy.” He said there are “increasing commercial [real estate] foreclosures of every business nature.”
The foreclosure notices published this month are for public auctions scheduled on April 6. Bramlett explained that he expected a “bump” this month, partly because the foreclosure auctions on the county steps occur nearly a full week into next month. That extends the cutoff time to place foreclosure ads.
Still, the situation so far looks worse than last year, when an annual record was set of 117,107 notices.
“I like to look at quarter to quarter, and it is still slightly trending upward,” Bramlett said. For this year’s first quarter, there were 31,067 notices. That compared with 29,317 for the fourth quarter of 2009, he said.
This month, Gwinnett led the pack with 2,648 foreclosure notices, followed by Fulton with 2,455. DeKalb was third (2,046), followed by Cobb (1,430) and Clayton (1,012).
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