Foreclosures are on the rise in the Dayton metro area, with Montgomery County having the highest numbers. This comes from the foreclosure filing company, Realty Trac.
Montgomery, Greene and Miami Counties saw a 30 percent increase in foreclosure filings in August from the same time a year ago. Montgomery County had the largest increase from 663 filings in August 2009, to 884 last month. University of Dayton economist Richard Stock says because of recent jobs loss, this doesn't come as a surprise.
"We've had 10 years of job losses. The period of July 2008-2009 has been particularly severe, and we simply have not recovered any of those jobs over the last year," says Stock, "We've had a wave of people losing work. I'd expect to see that rate of foreclosure rise as people run out of options."
Stock says a foreclosure filing doesn't necessarily mean that someone will lose their home, but that does it make it harder to keep one. He adds that he doesn't see the foreclosure problem getting better any time soon.
"The banks were sort of holding off on some aspects of the foreclosures over the least year because they were so behind and overwhelmed, and now that they have ramped-up their staff I would anticipate them being more aggressive in terms of those foreclosures," says Stock.
Statewide, filings were up 18.6 percent from a year ago. Ohio had the nation's 12th highest foreclosure rate last month.