Number of German foreclosures set to rise in trend reversal

There were less real estate foreclosures on commercial and residential property in German in the first half of this year than last year, according to the half-yearly report from sector specialist Argetra. Overall 23,000 court-ordered foreclosures took place over the six months, 1.4% less than in the same period last year. Last year the figure was down 29% on the previous year. Argetra gathers its data from court-ordered procedures at over 500 German district courts.

Interestingly, the Ratingen-based Argetra is flagging a trend change, however – they expect the total of foreclosures for the full year to be up on the previous year for the fist time in eight years, both in number of foreclosures and in the total value of the assets.

In fact, the value of foreclosures in the first six months was up by nearly €29m to €3.6bn. The number of actual foreclosures rose in western Germany by 0.5%, while the figure in eastern Germany was marginally down. 70% of all foreclosures are in the residential sector, where banks have traditionally considered their risk to be very low, so a trend change could give them pause for thought after a steady run-up in prices over the past three years.