As we noted in today's paper, foreclosure activity climbed 12 percent in the St. Louis region last year, and topped the all-time high set in 2008, according to new numbers from RealtyTrac.
But the St. Louis region is a big place - RealtyTrac counts foreclosures in 17 counties here - and the picture of exactly where mortgage trouble is hitting hardest continues to change. So when RealtyTrac kindly supplied us five years' worth of county-level foreclosure data, we decided to poke a little deeper.
As you'd expect, foreclosure activity was centered in the region's populous urban core. St. Louis County, by far the biggest county, saw by far the most foreclosures last year, with nearly 9,000. St. Louis City, St. Charles and St. Clair County all topped 2,400. Crawford County had 16. In Calhoun County, RealtyTrac says, just one home was in foreclosure in 2010.
When we broke down the share of homes in foreclosure, the results were similar, though a few subtle differences emerged. At 2.13 percent, St. Clair County had the highest percentage of homes facing mortgage trouble. In St. Louis County it was 2.01 percent. Among major counties, St. Louis City and St. Charles County actually fared the best, each with a 1.79 percent foreclosure rate.
(% of homes in each county that had a foreclosure filing in 2010)
| Saint Clair | 2.13% |
| Saint Louis | 2.01% |
| Jefferson | 1.94% |
| Madison | 1.93% |
| Saint Charles | 1.79% |
| Saint Louis City | 1.79% |
| Monroe | 1.21% |
| Clinton | 0.87% |
| Lincoln | 0.72% |
| Bond | 0.53% |
| Warren | 0.49% |
| Macoupin | 0.42% |
| Franklin | 0.42% |
| Jersey | 0.39% |
| Washington | 0.21% |
| Crawford | 0.14% |
| Calhoun | 0.04% |
Then we looked at the big counties over time. What we found was interesting. After a dip last year, St. Louis County is at an all-time high. But St. Louis City is nearly one-fourth down from its peak in 2008 and St. Clair County foreclosures have dipped, too. Meanwhile, filings in St. Charles, Madison and Jefferson Counties continue to notch upward.
This fits with what we hear from housing counselors and industry-watchers in the region: That a first wave of foreclosures driven by investment properties and subprime lending (centered in St. Louis City, North County and parts of St. Clair) has peaked and largely washed out of the system. What's driving foreclosures now is the rise in joblessness, which is a much more wide-spread problem.
And one that doesn't appear to be going away any time soon.
Are you on Twitter? We are. Keep up with the latest in St. Louis area real estate and development news by following here.
