Foreclosures.com Sees More Foreclosure Activity Coming in Phoenix

Business Wire, March 3, 2003

Business Editors

SACRAMENT0, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 2003

Foreclosures.com, a Sacramento based publisher of pre-foreclosure property information in the Phoenix metro area expects foreclosure activity in Maricopa County to increase in 2003 as the local housing market showed some weakness going into the New Year.

"The market is giving up some of its 2002 gains," said company president Alexis McGee. "According to a report from the Arizona Real Estate Center, the median price of resale homes dropped to $147,950 in January from $148,900 in December." Ms. McGee went on to say that price appreciation in 2002 had slowed to 3.5% and that the downturn was "not a complete surprise in view of continued weakness in the economy."

She cited the strong dependence of the Phoenix metro economy on high tech and aerospace, together with uncertainty about a coming war, as major factors in the bleaker outlook for the local employment situation. "We think that, until the Iraq question is resolved, improvement of the Maricopa County business climate will be slow. More people will find it impossible to hang onto their homes."

Ms. McGee pointed out that Foreclosures.com research had established a linkage between a cool housing market and an increase in foreclosure activity. "When equity growth slows or goes negative," said Ms. McGee, "low down payment homeowners get squeezed. The refinance window slams shut, and lenders get a little quicker on the foreclosure trigger when they see delinquencies building." Ms. McGee added that January home sales volume in the Phoenix metro area had also declined to 4220 from 6095 a month earlier. "That's still a good number," she said, but added, "It's the direction things are going that will spark foreclosures. We're more interested in the trend."

Foreclosures.com has been publishing pre-foreclosure data at their website www.foreclosures.com and assisting investors in California for more than a decade. The company recently expanded its service to the metro areas of Phoenix, Chicago, New York City, and all of New Jersey.

Ms. McGee said that her company's primary mission was to assist foreclosure investment specialists in locating troubled homeowners and helping them sell their way out of foreclosure. "People that have run out of both options and time," she pointed out, "can at least conserve some equity to start over. That's better than losing everything, including their credit, at a sheriff's auction."