Fewer foreclosed homes sold at auction

Bill Detweiler sought bids on Thursday for the city's orphaned houses, property that had been destabilized by flood, divorce or bankruptcy, and then finally lost to foreclosure.

Detweiler was the lead barker at the weekly auction the civil sheriff holds to dispose of property whose owners have lost their grip on their mortgages. The low-key event, which involved only about a dozen houses, signaled just how insulated Louisiana remains from the foreclosure crisis that has raged across states such as California, Florida and Nevada.

The real estate market in such states swooned to new highs in 2005 and 2006, buoyed by the proliferation of exotic mortgages that pushed buyers into houses they could not truly afford. When home prices began retreating, buyers began walking away from mortgages that were in some cases worth more than the house itself.

Such risky loans never had much of a foothold in Louisiana, perhaps because the state was devastated by two major hurricanes around the time their popularity was peaking in other states. Orleans Parish Civil Sheriff Paul Valteau Jr. said the tide of insurance money that flowed in after the storm helped many owners catch up on their mortgage payments if they had fallen behind.

Valteau said Thursday that his office is selling fewer foreclosed homes at auction than it was before Hurricane Katrina. He put 3,062 residential and commercial properties in New Orleans on the block in 2003 and sold 938 of them. Last year, he put 2,466 up for auction and sold 760.

These are just a fraction of the houses touched by foreclosure in the states at the epicenter of the crisis. The research firm RealtyTrac calculated that California tallied 80,800 foreclosure notices last month, while Nevada had 18,100. Louisiana ranked No. 40 among all states with 678 foreclosure filings. Those notices include properties in various stages of foreclosure, and not all will end with the owner losing his home....