By Steve Jones
MYRTLE BEACH — The National Association of Realtors is reporting that foreclosures nationally on homes valued at $5 million or more have jumped by 61 percent since October 2012, citing figures from RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures nationwide.
There aren’t a lot of properties of that price in Horry County, and the county’s weekly foreclosure reports rarely have anything above $500,000. Most of the properties in foreclosure locally seem to be priced between $200,000 and $300,000.
NAR said that the jump in the ultra-lux foreclosures comes at the same time as other foreclosures have fallen by 23 percent nationally over the last year, a trend that’s also been seen along the Grand Strand.
But when you get to homes priced at $5 million or more, you’re not talking about a lot of properties anywhere, and NAR said the 61 percent jump involved fewer than 200 homes. That seems almost insignificant when compared to the 1.2 million homes of all values that have fallen under the foreclosure hammer this year.
But it’s not just the 1 percenters we should worry about in the high-end foreclosures, the NAR quoted Darren Blomquist, RealtyTrac vice president.
“Each of these high-value properties,” he said, “represents a much bigger potential loss for the foreclosing lender compared to a median-priced property.”
The areas hardest hit by the fall from the heights? South Florida, Orlando, Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York/Long Island/Northern New Jersey.
