Foreclosure is never a pleasant subject. This weekend's Gazette (The Gazette) had a pretty interesting article about the Colorado Springs foreclosure situation. There were lots of things in the article, but the ones that I thought were the most interesting were these:

1. We are heading for an all time numeric record for the number of foreclosures, but relative to the number of homes we now have, it really is not that high
2. Subprime loans seem to account for a high percentage of the foreclosure filings
3. The South end of the Springs seems to have the biggest problem
4. Roughly 40% of the foreclosure proceedings are not ending up at sale, as a result of the homeowner redeeming the property, successfully negotiating a short sale etc

Most of this is intuitively obvious, ie sub prime loans are usually made to people who have a less than stellar track record with their finances to begin with. The extended and repeated deployment of troops from Ft Carson will undoubtedly have the largest impact nearest the post. I was surprised at the high percentage of filings that do not end up going to sale, it confirms my suspicion that PRE-FORECLOSURE properties tend to be better deals sometimes than those that have gone the entire process.