Real estate | Distressed home data show big leap

There has been much talk about 2010 being the year of foreclosures, and data released this week provide the proof.

The number of properties with foreclosure filings in Horry County was up more than 3,000 percent from the peak of the real estate market in 2006 and 2007, according to RealtyTrac, a national company that tracks foreclosures.

In 2010, 3,896 properties, about one in every 44, had a foreclosure filing in Horry County, according to RealtyTrac.

The number of foreclosures was up almost 44 percent from 2009 in Horry County, which had the fifth-highest rate of foreclosure in South Carolina.

Georgetown County had substantially fewer foreclosure filings, 166 in 2010, but that was still up about 73 percent from 2009, and up more than 600 percent from 2006, according to RealtyTrac.

Brunswick County, N.C., had 499 foreclosure filings in 2010, up about 74 percent from 2009, and up about 467 percent from 2006, according to RealtyTrac.

Foreclosure filings may continue at the same pace or even increase this year, said Tom Maeser, a real estate analyst with the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors.

With a high level of unemployment and investors walking away from properties where they owe more than the property is worth, the major causes of foreclosures persist, he said.

"Every foreclosure just continues to drive down the prices, which puts those investor properties below the mortgage amount so it's self-perpetuating," Maeser said. "The problem keeps going until you get rid of the foreclosures."

The dropping prices make it hard for buyers to sell properties and results in all homeowners losing value. The benefit of low prices is that they have stoked sales, which should continue to be strong next year, Maeser said.

Horry County and other coastal counties such as Charleston and Beaufort counties have among the highest foreclosure rates in the state in part because they have a greater number of investor or second home owners who are more likely to let a property go into foreclosure, he said.

Horry County has a higher foreclosure rate than the national average, but overall the state has fared better.

The state had 33,063 foreclosure filings in 2010, for a rate of about one in every 62 housing units, which is up about 31 percent from 2009, according to RealtyTrac.

Nationally more than 2.8 million properties had a foreclosure filing in 2010, up almost 2 percent from 2009 and up 23 percent from 2008. About one in every 45 housing units in the U.S. got a filing last year, or about 2.23 percent of all properties.