As of last Friday, 434 Clallam County homes await foreclosure, according to Patti Morris, a real estate broker through JACE Real Estate in Port Angeles.

Morris shared the number at the Aug. 11“Coffee with Colleen” Zoom meeting through the Clallam County Economic Development Council.

“I would say once foreclosures do start to go, we will see homes coming on the market,” Morris said. “All federal agencies want them to be 30-day quick closures.”

Details on the types of homes, which city and the homeowners all vary, she said in a phone interview.

Homes range from manufactured homes to single-family homes to larger, more expensive homes, she said.

“From my experiences, it’s a whole variety of people living in the homes, and often it’s reverse mortgage homes where one of the heirs of the owner or squatters are in the homes, and it’s not necessarily someone who is in trouble with their mortgage,” Morris said.

She’s been tracking the foreclosures since the federal moratorium on evictions went into place March 2020.

“The homes may be occupied, but I don’t think it’s going to be a mass dump of homes on the market,” she said.

Washington state’s eviction moratorium is set to end Sept. 30, and the Supreme Court ruling on Aug. 26 to overturn the Biden Administration and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s moratorium on evictions.

However, Morris said she’s unsure just how soon these homes could go on the market.

“The eviction process could take a few months,” she said.

She said other homes facing foreclosure not through U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) would go through banks and other real estate agents and/or auction houses.

As for helping Clallam’s low housing inventory, she said it could help, but “it just depends on how quickly they are foreclosed on.”

EDC executive director Colleen McAleer asked if homeowners of foreclosed properties could connect with potential buyers, but Morris said the foreclosure process had already begun on these homes and were stopped by the federal and state moratoriums.

For options for veterans to avoid foreclosures, call 877-827-3702, and for those with loans through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) through HUD, call 800-225-5342.