Thanks to our friends at Jackson Hole Title & Escrow, who have been providing convenient and consistent updates on Teton County foreclosures, word came last night that the foreclosure set for today on an iconic Town Square property has been canceled due to bankruptcy.
For the back story on the Davies-Reid building (formerly Jackson Drug), see this recent Teton Realty Today post and the included links.
While short sales and foreclosures are not the most pleasant of real estate topics, the reality is a significant portion of the transactions in Teton County in recent months have seen sales prices that were not high enough to extinguish the debt on the property. How many? Hard to say as it would be very difficult at best to track which sellers negotiated lower payoffs with their lenders or brought additional money to closings. But I am seeing it on a daily basis in my business and those of my fellow Realtors. And, despite a stabilizing economy and an end to the freefall of home prices over the past 18 months, there is little reason to believe short sales and foreclosures will become a thing of the past in Teton County anytime soon.
An economist friend sent along the graph at the top of this post, a link to an excellent overview of the housing crisis, and the following data this morning:
The problem:
• 2007 foreclosures, 1.3M
• 2008 foreclosures, 2.3M
• 2009 foreclosures, 2.8M
• Dec/Dec, +15% (D = 4.2M annualized rate)
• One-third of existing home sales are foreclosures
His conclusion: The overhang of foreclosures is going to get considerably worse.
My conclusion? Contact me for a candid conversation focused on the Jackson Hole real estate market.
