“Christmas rush” pushes 2008 foreclosures over 2007 level; December sets monthly record
If the raw number of entries on Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court’s online docket is to be believed, 1,582 civil foreclosure cases were filed in the month of December. That’s more than in any previous month, ever.
Nearly half of that record number — 741 new cases — were filed between December 22 and New Year’s Eve.
This unexpected “Christmas rush” by lenders’ attorneys may have pushed the Court’s 2008 foreclosure total, which had been running about 3% behind last year’s, to a new all-time yearly high. According to NEO CANDO, last year’s record foreclosure count was 14,050 cases filed. It now appears that the final count for 2008 has topped it.
A story in yesterday’s Beacon-Journal told us that “The counties that include Akron and Cleveland are reporting that 2008 brought declining numbers of lawsuits filed by banks and other lenders to begin the foreclosure process.”
Unfortunately, not so much.
Update 1/3: Got an email from Steve Wertheim, the director of United Way’s 211/First Call for Help service, which takes calls from people facing foreclosure and refers them out to counseling agencies:
Bill, the first eight months of the year our numbers were lower then 07, but from September-December our numbers were higher then 07. Also the big change is that Cleveland represented 46% of the calls in 08 down from 53% in 07. And we are seeing a lot more calls from the outer ring suburbs in 08 than 07.
Update 1/7: NEO CANDO now has the December foreclosures in its database. Their count for the month of December (after eliminating duplicates and otherwise cleaning up the raw numbers) is 1,507. While fewer than the docket showed when I checked it last week, this still seems to be the Court’s all-time record for new foreclosures filed in a single month.
NEO CANDO’s lower December count does, however, bring their total for the whole year down to 14,041, which is nine foreclosures fewer than the all-time record posted in 2007.