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The list of foreclosures continues to grow in West Georgia due to job losses, particularly in the manufacturing sector, based on information provided by speakers at the Economic Forecast Breakfast meeting held in Carrollton by the University of West Georgia.

They said that one in every 38 homes in Carroll County is bank-repossessed and that one in every 49 homes in Haralson County is in foreclosure. They also said that the number of vacant foreclosed homes has been rising. Additionally, the problem of foreclosure has been spreading into affluent neighborhoods and into homes owned by prime borrowers.

Over the past 12 months, three banks in West Georgia have been closed. Housing starts in Carroll County have dropped by a staggering 82 percent and Haralson County also experienced a drop of almost 71 percent.

According to William Smith, economics professor at UWG, most foreclosures occurred in Carroll County, with the highest concentration of foreclosures in the neighborhoods of Villa Rica and in Temple.

The only positive thing about the long list of foreclosures in West Georgia is that it has pushed down home prices to levels affordable to many families. According to Donald Ratajczak, a business professor at Georgia State University, home values have fallen by 33 percent from their peak levels.

Economists who participated in the meeting also agreed that the improvement in home affordability will contribute to economic recovery, especially if the unemployment rate continues its downward direction despite its still high level.

In Carroll County, 4.5 percent of all jobs or 1,744 jobs were eliminated so far this year, most of which were due to the closure of the Pilgrim’s Pride and Carlisle manufacturing plants. In Haralson, 6.7 percent of all jobs were lost, most of which arose from the closure of the Ball manufacturing operation in Tallapoosa.

The job sectors recovering in Carroll County are social services and health care, mostly because of the opening of the Villa Rica behavioral health center called Willowbrook at Tanner. Some small businesses are also helping create jobs in Haralson and food services are surviving in most parts of West Georgia.

Business professor Ratajczak said that in past recessions, consumer confidence helped in contributing to economic recovery, but this year, consumer confidence levels are still down in West Georgia because of concerns about job losses, frozen wages and the area’s still growing list of foreclosures.

Home foreclosure listing is still growing in metro Atlanta despite published reports of declining foreclosures in other metro areas in the country.

According to data from Alpharetta-based real estate research firm Equity Depot, nearly 117,000 residential properties in metro Atlanta will have been notified of foreclosure by the end of the year if the current foreclosure pace does not slow down.

Barry Bramlett of Equity Depot said that the main reason for foreclosures now is no longer subprime lending but unemployment and other effects of the recession. In the past years, defaulting borrowers were able to quickly sell their houses to be able to pay their loans, but now they cannot sell even at low prices.

According to Dan Immergluck, regional and city planning professor at Georgia Tech, the largest growth in home foreclosure listing are in the counties of Gwinnett, Cobb, Forsyth and Cherokee. He explained that the foreclosure crisis has reached the higher-cost communities in the suburbs.

As of January, the highest number of foreclosure notices was posted in Fulton County, which had more than 18,600 filings. At its current pace, Fulton is expected to reach 35 percent more filings than last year. Gwinnett, which had already more than 17,000 filings, is expected to reach 71 percent more filings than last year.

Out of the 13 counties surveyed, only DeKalb County has not yet surpassed total filings in 2008, but it is expected to reach 13,677 foreclosure filings or 30 percent more filings this year compared to last year.

Meanwhile, Cobb County is expected to reach 12,833 filings, 57 percent more than last year’s filings. Cobb has about 201,000 houses, according to Steve Palm of SmartNumbers. With Equity Depot foreclosure data, over 6 percent of 201,000 homes will have been notified of foreclosure by the end of the year. In contrast, only 15,253 houses were notified of foreclosure in 2000.

Palm said that around one-third of households receiving foreclosure notices ultimately go into foreclosure. The percentage is higher than during the first months of the foreclosure crisis because many homeowners facing foreclosures now are prime borrowers. Oftentimes these borrowers have other resources they can use to prevent their properties from being repossessed by the banks.

Nonetheless, according to Atlanta analysts, even prime borrowers will not be able to prevent their properties from going into home foreclosure listing if the economy does not recover as quickly as hoped for.

The second quarter of 2008 started with more homes making their way into Georgia foreclosure listings. The rate of foreclosures in June 2008 was high enough to give the state the reputation of being the eighth-worst state in terms of foreclosures in the nation. The June 2008 report clearly shows that Georgia has recorded 8,714 foreclosure filings that include a healthy percentage of auction sale notices, default notices, and bank repossessions. This has sent many more homes skyrocketing into the Georgia foreclosure listings.

The high number of filings suggests that Georgia is seeing an increase of 21.2 since June 2007 but then on the other hand, the state has also witnessed a 15 improvement in foreclosure listings in Georgia since May 2008. The rate of foreclosure in the state was recorded at one per 444 homes in June 2008. Comparatively speaking, the total number of foreclosures in the US in June 2008 was 252,363, which means there was a fall of 3 since May 2008 but at the same time, there was a huge increase of 53 since June 2007. The average rate of foreclosures in the country was one per 501 U.S. homes in June 2008.

Realty Trac believes that June 2008 was the second consecutive month this year to have witnessed foreclosures filings in excess of quarter million properties across the country. The REO?s and Bank repossessions have increased at rapid pace vis – à – vis auction notices or default notices.

If the foreclosure process goes on like this, then there will be more than a million homes in Georgia foreclosure listings by the end of the year. The foreclosure listings in Georgia exist due to the foreclosure process, and if you would like to get foreclosure information or comprehensive Georgia foreclosure listings then you can get them easily with the help of online foreclosure brokers instead of spending time hunting around.