One foreclosure statistic promising

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 7, 2007 at midnight

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Finally, some good news about Colorado foreclosures.

The number of real estate owned, or REO, filings dropped by 45 percent in the first 10 months of the year, compared with the same period in 2006.

It was the biggest percentage drop of the nine states that saw a drop on a per capita basis, according to a national report released Tuesday.

REOs are foreclosed homes taken back by the lenders to sell them. Not all homes that enter foreclosure become REOs.

Colorado saw 10.4 REO filings per 1,000 households in the first 10 months of the year, compared with 18.9 filings per 1,000 households during the same period in 2006, according to Sacramento, Calif.-based Foreclosures.com.

That's good news if it is true, said Ryan McMaken of the Colorado Division of Housing.

However, Foreclosures.com also reported there were 16,693 REOs in Colorado in the first 10 months of the year and REOs are roughly equivalent to foreclosure auction sales, McMaken said.

Last year, there were 13,643 auction sales in Colorado, according to the housing division.

"So, if we accept their current 10-month number and compare it to our 2006 12-month number, we already have a 22 percent increase," McMaken said.

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