Lorton Foreclosures: Demand Up In a Seller's Market

There’s good news and bad news about area foreclosures. The average price of foreclosed homes across Fairfax County is well above the average price across Virginia and the nation—and that’s the good news.

The bad news is that there has been little improvement in the number of foreclosures on the market in Fairfax County in the past year.

Virginia has about 15,000 homes that were bank-owned or in foreclosure, or 1.1 percent of the country's 1.34 million foreclosures. Sixteen percent of Virginia’s foreclosures were in Fairfax County. There were 2,431 Fairfax County homes in foreclosure last month alone, according to RealtyTrac.com.

Lorton and Other Area Foreclosures

The Lorton area had 238 homes that were bank-owned or in foreclosure as of March 20, 2012. Of those homes, 141 were in the 22079 ZIP code and 97 bank-owned homes were in the 22060 ZIP code, according to RealtyTrac.

The nearby Fairfax Station area had 57 homes that were bank-owned or in foreclosure as of March 20, 2012. Of those homes, 29 were in the 22039 ZIP code and 28 were in the 20124 ZIP code.

The Mount Vernon area had 246 homes that were bank-owned or in foreclosure as of March 20, 2012. Of those homes, 97 bank-owned houses were in the 22060 ZIP code and another 149 were in the 22309 ZIP code. 

Patience and Pricing

Rumors about the difficulty of buying a foreclosed property may have scared some potential buyers away from foreclosures in the past.

But Vivianne Couts, a realtor at Coldwell Banker in Fairfax, said she didn’t think there was a stigma against buying foreclosed properties. “I think neighbors are generally pleased when someone buys a foreclosure, as they’ll probably take better care of the property then the prior owner did,” she said.

Couts admitted that many buyers assume foreclosures are in bad shape, but that most foreclosures these days are in relatively good condition.

“The banks will frequently reimburse the realtors for their repair costs,” she said. “Banks are like any other seller. They know it will sell for more if the house looks decent.”

The average price of a foreclosed home in Fairfax County in late March was about $321,000. That’s more than both Virginia and the nation’s average prices, which were $243,772 and $165,321 respectively.

Virginia’s foreclosure situation has seen little movement since this time in 2011, according to the Virginia Housing Development Authority — a problem unlikely to change significantly until the Commonwealth sees a drop in unemployment and household debt, and a rise in income. In fact, when foreclosed properties are sold, the borrowers’ loans have been delinquent an average of four months.according to Virginia’s foreclosure prevention website, www.virginiaforeclosureprevention.com.

The hardest part about buying a foreclosed property is having patience, said Couts. “Frequently, the bank will give a verbal reply, and then send the contract addendums to the buyer later,” she told Patch in an email. “However, a verbal reply is not binding, so in the time the buyer is waiting for the paperwork, the bank can legally accept another offer.”

The foreclosed properties that have sold so far this year have been on the market for an average of 65 days, said Couts. “It should be lower, because it takes the banks a few days to reply to an offer, but they have to keep the property listed as active while they do their paperwork.”

The Fairfax County government website has a variety of resources for homeowners facing difficulties paying their mortgage, including a list of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved counseling agencies and information on foreclosure prevention.