By Andy Owens
aowens@scbiznews.com
Published Nov. 13, 2009
Across South Carolina, foreclosures have decreased by 10.58% in the past month, according to data released by a national real estate tracking firm.
RealtyTrac, which issues monthly reports on national, state and local foreclosure numbers, reported that foreclosures in South Carolina dropped from 3,231 in September to 2,889 in October. That’s a swing of nearly 13 percentage points compared with August, when foreclosures were up by 1.94%.
Year-to-year figures show a 42.2% increase from October 2008 to October 2009. RealtyTrac reported those actual numbers to be 2,031 and 2,889, respectively.
A county-by-county breakdown shows that foreclosures and percentages still vary among individual counties, but, other than in the Lowcountry, the numbers of homes in distress in the state’s major markets were down for October.
Upstate
Counties in the Upstate all saw dramatic drops in month-over-month foreclosures, with Anderson County posting a 56.92% drop, Spartanburg County showing a 28.75% drop and Greenville County showing a 17.72% decrease.
Midlands
In the Midlands, foreclosure numbers were also down dramatically for nearly every county: Fairfield, down 25%; Kershaw, down 47.92%; Lexington, down 13.97%; Newberry down 47.22%; Richland, down 7.38%; and Sumter, up 1.69%.
Lowcountry
Charleston County posted a 15.57% decrease in foreclosure activity. Berkeley County had a 28.3% increase, and Dorchester County had a 137.50% increase, but the actual numbers in Berkeley and Dorchester counties were smaller than those in Charleston County.
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