The Kaufman County housing market has cooled from red hot to a warm glow.

There have been foreclosures in the county and the number of new housing starts has dropped, but it is more of a mild slide rather than a hard fall, housing and foreclosure experts said.

“There is nothing that says long-term growth patterns along (Highway) 80 are going to change,” said Ted Wilson with Residential Strategies. His company provides housing forecasts for many North Texas cities including Forney.

He said home sales slowed somewhat in the fourth quarter of 2006 leaving the county with an oversupply of finished homes. Starts of new homes have dropped until those homes are sold.

At the end of the year the county had about a 3.6 month supply of new homes. That means it typically would take more than three months to sell all the homes on the market. Builders strive for a 2.5 month supply.

“The builders will have to be a little bit more careful,” in their home starts, Mr. Wilson said.

It’s difficult to tell whether foreclosures have increased, said Georgy Roddy of Roddy Information Services, a foreclosure tracking firm.

National foreclosure tracking firms often don’t have precise figures outside major urban counties and he’s only been watching Kaufman County for about six months, he said. There is not enough reliable data to compare this year to last.

In February, 56 properties were posted for foreclosure auction and 44 were actually foreclosed. Fifty-eight have been posted for March auction.

After auction, foreclosed homes usually stay on the market about 5 months before being sold, giving the county an estimated 200 foreclosed homes for sale.

In North Texas, more than 3,200 homes are facing a forced sale in March, up 7 percent from the same time last year.

Dallas has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country and Texas has been near the top of the foreclosure list for three years.

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