Foreclosure Update: Longmont

County reports most foreclosures in nearly 20 years



The Associated Press

BOULDER — Nearly 800 Boulder County residents defaulted on their mortgages in 2006, making for the highest number of foreclosures in the county in nearly 20 years.

The county’s 790 foreclosures for 2006 was 27 percent higher than the 619 reported in 2005. The record was set in 1988, when 1,080 foreclosures were reported as the state’s oil and real estate economies collapsed and people left the state looking for work.

Other parts of Colorado also saw high foreclosure numbers this year. Broomfield reported 195 for 2006, a 57 percent increase over the 124 reported last year and a record for the county’s five years of existence.

Public trustee’s offices in the seven-county metropolitan area reported 17,782 foreclosures as of the end of November, 3.8 percent higher than the 1988 record of 17,122.

Mortgage fraud schemes and an increasing number of low- or no-down-payment and other higher-risk mortgage products have contributed to the high numbers of foreclosures, experts said.

Lou Barnes, a mortgage lender with Boulder West Financial Services, said most of the foreclosure activity stemmed from loans that required little or no down payment or was in areas with soft housing markets.

He said soft markets in Larimer, Weld and Adams counties and in eastern Longmont have come to be known as the “foreclosure belt,” where a glut of new housing has depressed prices of existing homes.

“That means the buyer from three years ago who’s in trouble now can’t get out of their house,” he said. “If you’ve got less than 5 percent equity in your house and prices aren’t appreciating, you can’t afford to sell your house.”

Some housing experts have predicted foreclosures could rise even further next year.