All time record foreclosures in Snohomish County!

While Barrack Obama gets ready to fly back to Europe, this time to collect his 10 Million Swedish Crowns for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and our Governor Christine Gregoire continues her crusade to promote Al Gore’s Cap and Trade/global warming swindle; our own Aaron Reardon is preparing for his ridiculous conference on October 13 to explain “how health care is being transformed right here, right now in the Puget Sound region”. These elected leaders don’t want you to know that more than 6,000 families are about to lose their homes in Snohomish County. Many of these families are part of the 67,000 unemployed which may go dramatically higher when the September numbers come out on the 13^th of this month. I’m expecting the unemployment number to go to 10%.

For those of you who have been following my reporting on the economy in SNO County, I first reported in July that this quarter which began on 10/1 was going to border on disaster. I had no idea that the foreclosures during this period would be at these record levels!  This week I received news that more than 6,000 houses, condominiums, doublewides, manufactured homes or whatever are up for foreclosure over the next 90 days. After hearing this from a banking source I confirmed the number with a real estate executive in Everett who responded to my Blackberry inquiry (“I’m hearing that 6,000 homes are up for foreclosure this quarter. Is that possible?” The answer that came back was a quick: “Yes!”) The banking clearing houses have hired bonded and insured locksmiths to help with the process. I understand that at least 1,000 or more of these homes have been abandoned! 

As one source remarked about the abandoned homes, “Amazingly many of these folks have only taken their own personal possessions; they have left behind their Cadillac’s in the garage and their 50 inch plasma TV’s still plugged in. The only problem is we don’t have the keys and the power has been shut off!”

What in the heck in the problem here? Well, the Federal “Hope for Homeowners Act” has helped a little, but so many of the people who are underwater and/or behind with their mortgage payments were either unable to qualify for the refinancing or have again gone into default with their new mortgages. Also, many of the lenders have been reluctant to begin foreclosures and have given many of these defaulting homeowners additional time to make up the back payments. For those individuals TIME HAS RUN OUT! To make matters worse: the long dreaded Adjustable Rate Mortgage resets have been issued as of September first and a high percentage of folks with those mortgages have just given up and moved on! All of this very bad economic news has piled onto the 4^th Quarter. In a word, delayed misery for the holidays.

What else is coming up? Well, unfortunately the balance of Boeing’s 5,000 plus layoffs is expected to begin this month extending into the holiday season. Boeing is reluctant to keep those being laid off on the payrolls during the paid holiday period they have every year around Xmas time, so many of those layoffs have begun the first of this month. On top of that with a few exceptions, most of the major construction contractors permanently laid off most of their workers after Labor Day because next year’s permits for buildings and home construction are currently in the tank for SNO County.

If you read the “bailed out” Everett Herald or the Seattle Times, or if you watch the morons on the Seattle TV stations; all they show or write about are these “kabuki dancing doll” politicians running around trying to get your vote in this or some other November election. According to them things are just hunky-dory! This blogger suspects that there are going to be some big surprises coming out of the 2010 Congressional elections and it ain’t gonna be pretty!

(Editor’s note: I will have a complete analysis of the unemployment numbers for Snohomish County and Statewide coming up the week of October 12^th. Stay with the only right of center reporting blog in Washington State: Red County).