Orders of Notice increasing

I checked the number of Orders of Notice (the document that starts the foreclosure process) that were recorded so far this month and compared it to the same time last year. In the first three weeks of June 2011, we have recorded 43 Orders of Notice district-wide. For the same time in 2010, we only recorded 24. That's a 79% increase. The troubled properties are scattered throughout the district. Lowell has 21 of the 43 while Billerica has 6 and Dracut has 5. The mortgages being foreclosed are also of variable duration although most came near the end of the housing bubble (of the 43, 9 were from 2005, 10 from 2006 and 10 from 2007) while only a total of 7 of the 43 were from 2008 or more recently.

A dramatic rise in foreclosures is certainly not good news, so we'll keep close watch on this category in the coming weeks.