How Full — or Empty — is the Foreclosure Pipeline?
Today’s New York Times includes a story that — at least at first blush — has ominous implications for Minneapolis and the overall Twin Cities housing market:
In Minneapolis, lenders are bringing in at least six foreclosed homes for each they sell.
–Eric Dash, “Banks Amass Glut of Homes, Chilling Sales“; The New York Times (5/23/2011)
Yet barely two columns over, the same story includes a table showing that the number of homes held by area lenders (19,805) is almost three times greater than the 
homes now in the foreclosure process (4,987).
Doesn’t that suggest that the foreclosure problem locally is actually abating?
Conflicting Data
In fact, according to the data compiler, RealtyTrac, Minneapolis’ 3:1 ratio of currently foreclosed homes to future foreclosures is the best of 19 major metro areas it tracks.
Coming in second?
Washington, D.C. — arguably the nation’s best-performing market — with a ratio just over 2:1 (want to take a guess why Washington’s housing market is so strong?).
Parsing the same data, the nation’s most vulnerable market is . . . . New York City, with almost 8 homes currently in the foreclosure process vs. 1 already repossessed by banks.
