Foreclosure rate continues to rise in Whatcom County

Written by Dave Gallagher | The Bellingham Herald | November 30, 2010

Whatcom County’s foreclosure rate hit a new high in September while the delinquency rate leveled off, according to a new national report.

The rate of foreclosures among outstanding Whatcom County mortgages was 1.3 percent last month, up from 1.13 percent in August and the high-est monthly total since at least January 2009, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data and analytics company. In January 2009, the earliest available monthly information from CoreLogic, Whatcom’s foreclosure rate was 0.68 percent.

While continuing to trend higher, Whatcom’s foreclosure rate remains below the state and national average, which were 2 percent and 3.29 percent respectively in September.

The number of mortgages more than 90 days delinquent in Whatcom County was 3.89 percent in September, down from 3.9 percent in August. Washington’s delinquency rate for the same period was 5.82 percent, while the national rate was 7.84 percent.

The percentage of loans not sold at auction and returned to the lender in September was 0.24 percent in Whatcom County, the highest monthly rate since at least January 2009. The state real estate owned rate was 0.4 percent, while the national rate was 0.7 percent.