Gordon County residents saw a slight climb in foreclosures in August, although the number of homes lost remained lower than it was for August of last year.

The foreclosure numbers for Gordon are based on legal notices, released at the beginning of each month to the Calhoun Times, which serves as the legal organ for Gordon County.

According to newspaper foreclosure records: seventy-seven properties were reverted to lenders last month, an increase of almost 17 percent from July, which experienced 64 foreclosures, but a decrease of more than 12 percent since August 2010.

So far in 2011, the average for Gordon has been around 70 foreclosures per month.

The county has the 30th highest number of foreclosures for August out of the 159 counties in Georgia, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes.

All six counties served by the News Publishing Co. family of newspapers, Cherokee, Ala., Catoosa, Polk, Gordon, Floyd and Walker, experienced foreclosure increases from July to August of this year, but August numbers decreased from a year ago, according to the legal notices filed.

Nationally, Georgia has the fifth highest foreclosure ranking. Georgia reported that 1.5 percent of the state’s homes had a foreclosure filing during the first six months of 2011, according to a Midyear 2011 Foreclosure Market Report recently released by RealtyTrac.

The news comes as Gordon struggles with an unemployment rate of 11.6 percent for July and August, the latest numbers available from the Georgia Department of Labor.

Home sales

The number of foreclosed homes in the Gordon area is also having an affect on the local real estate market, even though that number has decreased since last year.

Rebecca Brown, broker and realtor at Rebecca Brown and Associates in Calhoun, said her business is still reaping the consequences of foreclosures.

“We are selling quite a few foreclosures but at reduced prices,” she said. “That affects your income because you are selling for less.”

Chuck Slump, of REMAX Neighbors in Calhoun, echoed Brown’s sentiment about the real estate market.

“It’s affected our sales figures,” he said. “We are selling a lot of homes, but the prices are lower in that end.”

However, Brown said that it’s not all bad. At least not for buyers looking to purchase a home in a neighborhood where there have been foreclosed homes.

“It creates an incentive for buyers to negotiate the price of the home in that neighborhood,” she said.

Home sales throughout the U.S. rose 7.7 percent in August, according the National Association of Realtors, totaling around 5.03 million homes sold, however, foreclosed homes made up 31 percent of those homes.