The Phoenix area's crush of foreclosures has drawn national attention, routinely ranking that area among the most severely hit markets in the U.S.
But at the same time, rural communities in Arizona have been quietly grappling with their own crisis.
And it's a crisis with no end in sight for smaller towns. Many homeowners faced with escalating mortgage payments and job losses have been giving up on modifying mortgages and abandoning homes.
With neither strong rental markets to absorb displaced homeowners nor ample job opportunities, leaders in some rural communities fear they are losing longtime residents due to foreclosures.
In Coconino, Mohave and Santa Cruz counties combined, roughly 5,360 homes have faced foreclosure this year through October, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.,-based company that tracks foreclosures.
People are also reading…
Gathering specific data on rural foreclosures and the effects on the established communities, which have more seasonal residents and mobile and manufactured housing, is difficult, said Jay Butler, director of the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University.
"There's not a lot of data on the rural areas," Butler said. "It's a different mix of things that are ongoing there. The economies are much smaller."
Real estate experts originally predicted that housing market recovery would begin this year, Butler said, but now the consensus is that a recovery won't begin until at least next year.
"We've got a long ways to go before that segment of the market recovers," he said.
In Southern Arizona's Santa Cruz County, for example, the onslaught of foreclosures is only part of a complex economic struggle in Nogales and nearby Rio Rico.
Businesses that rely on traffic from Mexico have been struggling with effects of SB 1070, Arizona's law on illegal immigration that has made many Mexicans fearful of crossing the border, said Arnold Quijada, chairman of Nogales-Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce.
Further, recent media reports have highlighted the growing violence on the Mexican side of Nogales and other border towns, giving the town a dangerous reputation and keeping even more visitors at bay, Quijada said. In response, the chamber is launching campaigns to reverse the effects of the immigration law, negative media portrayals and the foreclosure crisis.
"Nogales and Santa Cruz County are in a very unique situation due to the fact that we're so close to the border," Quijada said. "Definitely we want to continue prospering. A town with many difficulties, it's hard to continue progressing."
Like Kingman and Flagstaff, Nogales has been hit with the economic impact of foreclosures as small, mom-and-pop businesses have suffered first, followed by larger chain stores, Quijada said. Santa Cruz County, with 17,578 homes in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, had roughly 67 foreclosures in October, including 14 in Nogales.
In a neighborhood that borders a park, West Anza Drive is lined with modest, single-family homes with manicured lawns. But along that street a foreclosure has left one property choked by weeds. A tricycle sits inside the fence on the front walkway.
The home is set to go up for auction in the next two months at the Santa Cruz County Courthouse.
On any given weekday at the top of the courthouse steps, auctioneer Jamie Sainz may be announcing the latest home up for bid in Santa Cruz County.
While foreclosure auctions were rare several years ago, he said he now announces roughly 300 trustee sales per month.
Rio Rico, a growing community less than 10 miles north of Nogales, has been hit most severely by foreclosures, with 40 properties - or one out of every 110 homes - in the foreclosure process in October, according to RealtyTrac. That's 10 times higher than the foreclosure rate in October 2006.
"I've been hearing it's going to get a lot worse," Sainz said. "There's no jobs down here. No jobs to keep."
Alejandro Martinez, a housing counselor with Chicanos Por La Causa, expects the foreclosure crisis to continue five to seven years before abating.
"We try to keep people in homes as much as we can, but that's not always the case," Martinez said. "A lot of people are giving up. They think it's not worth it."
ARIZONA FORECLOSURES
Apache County
October 14
2010 through October 65
Cochise County
October 104
2010 through October 728
Coconino County
October 136
2010 through October 954
Gila County
October 61
2010 through October 488
Graham County
October 23
2010 through October not available
Greenlee County
October 3
2010 through October not available
La Paz County
October 13
2010 through October 79
Maricopa County
October 11,683
2010 through October 76,029
Mohave County
October 502
2010 through October 3,745
Navajo County
October 124
2010 through October 829
Pima County
October 1,614
2010 through October 11,594
Pinal County
October 1,544
2010 through October 10,102
Santa Cruz County
October 67
2010 through October 640
Yavapai County
October 453
2010 through October 3,448
Yuma County
October 197
2010 through October 1,541
Foreclosures, home sales fall in metro Phoenix
A new Arizona State University report shows the number of existing home sales and foreclosures in metropolitan Phoenix dropped to the lowest level in more than a year last month.
Foreclosures made up only 30 percent of the sales activity, down more than 40 percent from the previous four months.
Only 6,845 existing homes changed hands last month, including 2,100 homes lost to banks through foreclosures. More than 8,000 homes sold in October and about 9,000 in September.
ASU real estate studies professor Jay Butler says slowing sales are common later in the year but the weak economy and job market are combining with tighter loan standards to crimp home buying. The drop in foreclosures was probably caused by a bank moratorium on repossessions that has since expired.
The Associated Press
