GREELEY, COLO. — The phones inside the Weld County public trustee's office ring insistently throughout the day, with questions from harried bank lenders and pleas from residents on the verge of losing their homes.
After relating their particular case, some callers ask the agency, which manages the sale of foreclosed properties for this city on the edge of the Front Range, the same questions: Just how bad is the housing market here? How much worse can it get?
The answers are usually grim.
For nine out of 12 months of 2006, Colorado led the nation in foreclosures -- and this county suffered the worst of it for much of that time, according to research by Irvine-based firm RealtyTrac Inc.
As the nation's housing market falters amid the unraveling of the sub-prime mortgage industry, some real estate experts are looking to Colorado as a portent of what other parts of the country could face in coming months.
Housing oversupply and rising interest rates sank the market in Weld County, where mile after mile of pastel-hued suburban homes with neatly mowed lawns have sprung up in this longtime agricultural and meatpacking center, also the site of the University of Northern Colorado.
Home buyers with risky mortgages found themselves with mounting bills they couldn't afford. Those who were forced to sell couldn't find buyers, leading to thousands of residents defaulting on their loans.
In 2004, Weld County had 1,155 properties foreclosed, according to the public trustee's office. In 2006, there were 2,073.
The workload at the trustee's office has grown so heavy that county trustee Susie Velasquez plans to hire more workers to handle the boom in business.
"This is not the type of growth that any community wants," said Velasquez, whose staff members' desks are covered in piles of foreclosure files. "This is the type of growth you pray never happens to your town."
Residents and city officials are starting to feel the trickle-down effect. Area construction companies and building supply firms have either had layoffs or left town. City officials are adjusting the annual budget's expected revenue for the second year in a row, after it became clear that building permits, construction sales and other related taxes would be generating $2 million less this year.
