August 08 Foreclosure Filings Down

Today is one of the 65 cloudy days a year we get in Colorado Springs, as opposed to the 300 days of sun. I think we only just broke 70 degrees for a few minutes before the cloud cover and some rain dropped us back into the 60’s. After all the hot and dry weather this summer, it is a wonderful break, and we have had some really nice evening rain to boot.
In about a month, we’ll start to see the leaves start turning in the high country. It is hard to accept that summer is almost over, but my wife the teacher will be back in her classroom in 1 week (who am I kidding, she is there right now, even though she doesn’t have to be!). This is when we usually take a couple of days for our last summer getaway, and try to get one more group gathering on the back deck for a “farewell to summer” party, either here or at friends houses. This fall should be a little different, with Holly only teaching mornings, hopefully it will be busier business wise as well.
I thought I’d mention a little snooping I’ve done on the foreclosure front. This past month’s new filings were substantially lower than last month (down 22.3%), and there are some questions in my mind as to what is happening. Our foreclosure laws changed at the first of the year, in that the owners “redemption period” was eliminated, and instead the time before sale was increased. In December, many foreclosures were filed, followed by a slower January. This months foreclosures was the lowest number we have seen since January, and leads me to believe we have bottomed out here. This follows the trend we’ve been observing of foreclosure and short sales as a percentage of our sales dropping from the mid 20’s to under 20% for the last couple of months.