A Ripple, Not A Tidal Wave: Foreclosure Prevalence and Foreclosure Discount

The following report, entitled “A Ripple, Not a Tidal Wave: Foreclosure Prevalence and Foreclosure Discount,” is authored by Christopher Cagan, Ph.D., director of research and analytics at First American CoreLogic.  To evaluate what is happening with foreclosures nationwide, we studied the sale prices of 24,876 single-family residences, condominiums, and townhouses that had been resold by a foreclosing lender during the first half of 2006, and compared their prices with those of 790,661 homes that had been sold in the same period without having been previously foreclosed.  In comparison with 2005 and 2004, it was found that the prevalence of foreclosures was definitely – but not dramatically – increasing.  Correspondingly, foreclosure discounts tended to deepen, but not catastrophically so.  In the first half of 2006, the foreclosure market experienced a mild ripple, but not a sweeping tidal wave.