Foreclosures having major effect on parts of county

Go to RealtyTrac.com and 6,021 properties are listed for Prince William County in various stages of foreclosure. Of that, 1,619 have gone to auction and 3,369 are bank-owned.

Go to a Yahoo search engine for nationwide foreclosure inventories and Woodbridge is listed with 2,382. Gainesville, according to this same site, has 253 homes in foreclosure; Bristow, 236; Manassas and Manassas Park, 1,624 and 297, respectively; Triangle, 83; Dumfries, 315; and Occoquan, just one.

The accuracy of those figures is debatable; not only are they fluid, but some numbers don't bear out when compared to local findings. The Yahoo site, for instance, reports Dale City has just two homes in foreclosure, while county housing statistics place that community on its hot list for housing distress.

"There's no question there are certainly areas that are feeling the effects in a very big way of foreclo-sures," said Bill Vaughn, an economist and financial analyst for the county. "They are parts of Woodbridge, Dale City, the city of Manassas and Sudley."

Sudley, Vaughn said, is the commonly accepted reference for the areas by Sudley Manor Drive, along Lomond Drive and Liberia Avenue.

"The ZIP code is 20109," he said. "That's a troubled area."

Still, most would agree, the numbers do point to a problematic housing market, at best.

"Prince William in general is above both the state and national average for foreclosures," said Supervi-sor Frank Principi, D-Woodbridge, who said he was aware of the high rate of vacancies in his district. "The message I want to give is that we are doing everything humanly possible to mitigate that and help keep families in their homes."

Toward the housing issue, the county has placed a focus on education and training, Principi said, and for the past six months has offered seminars to help existing homeowners escape foreclosure, as well as guide potential owners around the traps leading to foreclosure. Secondly, he added, the county is finishing details on its Home Help program that will provide incentives for government employees considered mission critical—teachers, firefighters, emergency responders and the like—to purchase homes and lower the stock of vacated and foreclosed houses.

"And the third area we are addressing pretty aggressively is the whole idea of stabilizing property values in our neighborhood," Principi said, referring to the board's recent passage of graffiti and trash removal measures that allow for speedy county clean-up on private properties.

But why so many foreclosures, say, in Woodbridge?

At first glance, it would seem that perhaps Woodbridge has a large population when compared to other areas of the county, and that would mathematically account for the higher foreclosure rates. Using Yahoo's numbers, along with City-data.com population statistics that draw from the Census Bureau, Woodbridge's 2,382 reported foreclosures are put in the context of 31,941 residents.

By comparison, Gainesville's 253 foreclosures come from a population of 4,382; Manassas City's 1,624 foreclosures from 35,135 residents; Bristow's 236 foreclosures from a population of 24,496; Dumfries' 315 foreclosures from 4,937 residents; and Haymarket's 80 foreclosures from a population of 879.

Aside from the fact these foreclosure numbers could be inaccurate—and according to Vaughn, this is a factor that demands consideration, given the numbers are constantly changing and the only source that is truly accurate is the local courthouse—and that numbers of residents is not the same as numbers of homeowners or homes, the population figures are also eight years old.

"I bet that [population] figure's more at 50,000 now," Principi said of his Woodbridge district.

Still, Principi recognized his district did seem to be suffering from foreclosures more than some others in the county, and without calling undue attention to the issue, he pointed to past board policies as partly to blame.

"I think it's safe to say I believe the immigration policy established by the last Board of Supervisors is in some measure contributing to the foreclosure rate in Woodbridge," Principi said.

Vaughn said his office did not have any statistics that could shed truth on that viewpoint or the impact of immigration policy on foreclosure rates—and given the sensitivity of the topic, would probably not be able to provide hard and fast figures anytime in the future. Such conclusions would likely remain in the realm of anecdotal, he said.

Moreover, his office doesn't track foreclosures by community name, so confirming Yahoo's reported 27 foreclosures for Nokesville, for instance, with county numbers is impossible. What does seem clear is that the overall county rate is still on an upswing.

"What we've found countywide," Vaughn said, "is that for the entire year of 2006, there were 249 foreclosed properties in Prince William County … For the whole year of 2007, it was 2,833, so that's a tenfold increase."

In the first six months of 2008, with June figures still an estimate, the county's foreclosure number has already hit at 2,926, Vaughn said.

"Next year's not looking good," he said, referring to the resetting of certain mortgage rates that is still to come. "There's lots of fluid information out there, but indications are [tough] certainly through the end of the year."

To add more confusion to the housing analysis pot: Some market and foreclosure figures aren't even showing as dire as others.

"For the local market, compared to June of 2007 to June of this year, the numbers were up 91 percent in units sold," said Mike Minnery, the immediate past president of the Prince William Association of Realtors. "The market really is awesome again. The buyer really is in the driver's seat."

The increase in sales is due to the drop in prices, Minnery said.

Still, even he sees current housing statistics as difficult to read, and what good news can be found is cautious optimism based on a confined price range.

"In the under $300,000 price range, that's what's turning back into the heavy seller's market," Minnery said, adding that buyers hold the advantage with homes priced more than $300,000. "It's really a weird market. Some elements indicate the buyers' market, some elements definitely are the sellers' market."

Vaughn found, too, that Metropolitan Regional Information System housing sales numbers for the past four months have started pointing up—something that hasn't been seen in two years, he said.

Staff writer Cheryl Chumley can be reached at 703-670-1907.