Foreclosures in Metro Atlanta Set New Record of 12,568 in March, Up Sharply from Last Year

Foreclosure rate in metro Atlanta surge to new record in March, to 12,568 and expected to get worse in April.

Brace yourselves, a deluge of foreclosures are coming. Metro Atlanta's foreclosure rate keeps getting worse. The number for foreclosures for March, 12,568, has set a new record for the city, according to Equity Depot. The foreclosure notices for the 13-county metro area jumped a staggering 22 percent, compared to February.

Barry Bramlett, president of Equity Depot, said in an e-mail that the number of foreclosures is “obviously impacted by both the lingering sub-prime [mortgage] mess and [the] economy.” He said there are “increasing commercial [real estate] foreclosures of every business nature.” The foreclosure notices published this month are for public auctions scheduled on April 6. Bramlett explained that he expected a “bump” this month, partly because the foreclosure auctions on the county steps occur nearly a full week into next month. That extends the cutoff time to place foreclosure ads. Still, the situation so far looks worse than last year, when an annual record was set of 117,107 notices.

“I like to look at quarter to quarter, and it is still slightly trending upward,” Bramlett said. For this year’s first quarter, there were 31,067 notices. That compared with 29,317 for the fourth quarter of 2009, he said. This month, Gwinnett led the pack with 2,648 foreclosure notices, followed by Fulton with 2,455. DeKalb was third (2,046), followed by Cobb (1,430) and Clayton (1,012). Source: AJC

So, while President Obama and the Congress are trying to tell us that things are getting better, the reality is that they are NOT. The big banks were bailed out and they do not want to work with people struggling to stay in their homes. Yes, there are people who had no business purchasing a home they could not afford, but there are also millions of people who have lost their jobs or have seen their hours cut in one-half and are struggling to make ends meet through no fault of their own. So, Mr. President, still have no clue on how to stem this disaster?