Staff Reports
In the face of a collapse in the national housing market, the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region has actually seen a decrease in the number of home foreclosures, an industry group reported Monday.
First American CoreLogic, a company that tracks statistics in the nation’s housing market, said that the region has seen a slight drop in home foreclosures from April 2008 to April 2009, and remains well below the average foreclosure rate for all of New York state. In 2008, there were 3,864 filings for foreclosure by April 2008, versus 2,266 in the same timeframe this year. That equates to nearly 1,600 fewer foreclosures overall.
The Buffalo-Niagara region presently has a foreclosure rate of 0.87 percent, down from 0.9 percent last year. The statewide rate is presently 1.69 percent, which is an increase from the April 2008 rate of 1.56 percent.
To date, 43,267 New Yorkers have had their homes enter foreclosure.
While the overall rate remains below 1 percent for the region, the statistics vary by postal zip code. Most zip codes remain below the 1 percent threshold, though several areas, mostly in the cities of Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Jamestown have rates above 2.8 percent, which the company labels “high.”
The two primary zip codes in the Twin Cities remain in the lowest group, below 0.8 percent. The zip code covering portions of Wheatfield and the LaSalle section of Niagara Falls is listed as “moderately low” — ranging between 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent.
