Foreclosures are up in August according to several online forecasters. According to ForeclosureRadar.com, “Foreclosure starts jumped significantly, reversing what had been a declining trend over the past several months. Investors bought more properties on the courthouse steps in August than in July everywhere except in Washington.” They go on to state that the primary factor may be Bank of America, “This appears to have been primarily driven by Bank of America and related entities, where we saw an overall 116 percent increase from July to August.”
According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, “RealtyTrac reported Thursday Georgia posted the fifth-highest state total with 11,743 properties with foreclosure filings in August — an increase of 2 percent from July, but down 28 percent from August 2010. Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac defines a foreclosure as default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.”
This is the main reason that Excalibur has been asking our new clients and just started asking our existing clients for a copy of their mortgage statement. We are trying to avoid putting tenants or keeping tenants in properties that may be under foreclosure. As you can imagine that can be quite burdensome to find out as a tenant that you may be losing your home and it is out of your control. The earlier we can prepare the tenants regarding this situation, the better. Another reason is some owners have been accused of fraud for renting a property to a tenant when the owner knew the loan was in arrears. We want the owner to avoid the risk of facing a criminal complaint from a new tenant.
Excalibur’s management agreement does require all owners to inform us within 15 days as soon as the mortgage payments are not current. Please provide the mortgage statement to our office when requested. We thank you in advance for your cooperation. Please let your property manager or our office know if you have any questions.
Blog post by John Durham, Marketing/Communications Director
Excalibur Home Management, an Atlanta property management company
