Published: October 10, 2008 10:27 pm      

Foreclosures up in Oklahoma County, topping 2007 numbers

OKLAHOMA CITY — With more than two months remaining in 2008, foreclosures in Oklahoma County already have topped those in all of 2007 by 18.7 percent, according to a real estate information service.

If foreclosure activity continues at the same pace through the end of the year, lenders will have taken back more than 4,400 homes in Oklahoma County by Jan. 1.

Alexis McGee, president of Foreclosures.com, predicted that foreclosures nationwide will top 1 million by the end of the year, based on preliminary numbers.

“Not all of these first September foreclosure numbers, however, are glum,” McGee said. Pre-foreclosure filings last month actually dropped 2.4 percent nationally, she said, “as the nation’s financial markets struggle to regroup in the wake of the credit market meltdown.”

While the number of foreclosed properties in Oklahoma County increased from August to September by 22.7 percent, Tulsa County’s foreclosures actually dropped by 28.2 percent, according to public records collected by the company.

And Tulsa County’s year-to-date foreclosure total, while still greater than all of 2007, has still grown by only 3.5 percent, a much slower pace than Oklahoma County.

Oklahoma’s two most populated metropolitan counties still lag behind the nation, however.

McGee’s numbers show that 10.4 out of every 1,000 households across the country have filed for foreclosure so far this season. In Oklahoma County, that ratio is 7.6 out of every 1,000 homes; in Tulsa, it is 8.1 out of every 1,000 homes.