Foreclosures in an Exurb: Multiple Empirical Analyses through a Prism

As the nation navigates through the stages of its foreclosure crisis, its journey brings with it negative outcomes that impact to the general real estate market. This paper combines two individual pieces and peruses a comprehensive illustration of the timeline of foreclosures and sheriff sales, and the effect they have on the single-family real estate market in Muskego, Wisconsin. This paper employs two econometric models to achieve its goal. First, we utilize a duration model that considers the time from a foreclosure’s filing until a sheriff sale or redemption. Our second model turns to a probit model, which attempts to predict whether a home is sheriff-sold or redeemed. Our results find that despite growing experience in dealing with foreclosures, lenders do not appear to have reduced the time from filing to sheriff sale. Finally, more expensive homes are less likely to be sheriff-sold following a foreclosure in relationship to other foreclosures.