In the wake of a housing crisis, Oklahoma is seeing an outpouring in the number of people with homes at risk of foreclosure.
According to Tulsa World, in almost two years, Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma was finally seeing a decline in the number of Oklahoma homeowners asking for aid. But that is only until recently that the number is increasing again, as reported by Laura Frossard, the foreclosure law advocacy coordinator for Legal Aid.
"We're now starting to get more foreclosure cases than we used to," Frossard said. "It's not like it was two years ago, but it's inching back up."
In a new report released by real estate data service RealtyTrac, more Tulsa residents faced eviction in 2015 than in 2014. The estimated total foreclosures filed last year was 3,971, which is 26.7 percent more than the number of foreclosures seen in 2014, making the foreclosure rate 1 in every 58 household. The national average that has seen a 3 percent decline in the foreclosure rate to 1 in every 122 household does not reflect what is happening in Tulsa.
There are many reasons why more Tulsan are facing foreclosure but the most common reason is the decrease in oil price.
"In many of the markets we saw increases, many of them were in areas that are heavily reliant on the oil industry," according to Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
Concurrently, Oklahoma City is taking an even greater hit from the decreasing oil prices with a 45.6 percent rise in foreclosures over the last year. On the other hand, oil dependent market in the state of Texas has seen mixed levels of home foreclosures. For example, Dallas sees a rise of 24.9 percent over 2015 and Midland has 36 percent increase. Meanwhile, Houston remained unchanged at near 0 percent increase or 0.3 percent.
