Property Foreclosures Predicted to Peak in 90 Days According to Appraisal Trends

Foreclosure records are found at the County Clerk Records Office, located inside the Val Verde County Courthouse

Real estate appraiser Val Cadena, owner and operator of Cadena Appraisal Services, has been appraising properties in Del Rio for three decades. Cadena accurately predicted a rise in Del Rio foreclosures during the real estate bubble burst in 2007-2008, and says he is seeing “the exact same thing” today. Cadena said, “of all the appraisals I did in March, 28% of them were foreclosures.” These foreclosed properties are not the dilapidated homes you might picture in your mind… they are often regular middle American families with a well-kept property, who simply cannot keep up with rising costs.

Cadena cited a collection of potential influences behind the rise in foreclosure appraisals that he observed, but said “the main factor is increase in property taxes.” One big issue driving higher property taxes is inflation of appraised property values. Cadena said, “house prices have increased exponentially… I have seen some values increase 400% since their purchase... without any improvements being done on the home.” When compared to their original monthly mortgage payments, Cadena said, people are paying “$800 - $900 more per month on average” to cover insurance rate and property tax increases.

Foreclosures occur when property-owners stop paying their mortgage. Mortgage companies are lienholders, normally a banking institution. Usually, mortgages wrap 3 costs into 1 single payment: the deed, the insurance, and property taxes. Although the payment for the deed doesn’t change, mortgage payments can increase over time when insurance costs or property taxes rise. In cases where people on fixed incomes cannot accommodate the additional cost, they must forfeit the property back to the lienholder, and all their previous investment along with it.

Causation is complex and cannot be tied to a single factor. Economic circumstances, politics, pandemics, labor costs and construction costs all play a role. Cadena also placed partial responsibility on the lienholders, citing predatory lending practices and irregular buyer incentives as potential explanations. Even statewide natural disasters, such as the increasing prevalence of wildfires and flash floods in Texas, influence insurance rates which can impact mortgage payments.

The Board of Realtors and the Val Verde County Appraisal District could not confirm Cadena’s predictions, because private appraisals occur before foreclosures become a matter of public record. Cadena gets an advanced view into trends before most other professionals in the real estate industry, conducting appraisals about 90 days before properties hit the market. According to 2023-2025 records procured from the County Clerk Records Office, numbers of foreclosure notices month-by-month have remained mostly stable over the last two years, but Cadena predicts a peak is around the corner.

The Val Verde County Appraisal District office is located at 417 W Cantu Rd, Del Rio, TX 78840

Cadena explained, “of all the appraisals I did in March, 28% of them were foreclosures.” He said it was a big shift from last month and even last year, that normally “it’s never close to that, maybe 10% or 15%.” Cadena was stunned by the number of foreclosure appraisals he conducted last month, “these are the highest [monthly] totals I’ve seen in 15 or 20 years.” Thankfully, the surge should be short-lived, Cadena said, “hopefully stabilizing in the next quarter.”

Looking deeper into county records, 10-year foreclosure trends suggest that notices are actually decreasing. However, Cadena believes this data is an inaccurate picture of foreclosure trends. Cadena said, formal foreclosures are “the old way of doing things.. nowadays people mostly just sign it over to the bank… or deed it back to the mortgage company,” explaining why public record foreclosures appear to be going down, while Cadena sees the frequency of lienholder repossession appraisals going up. He said, owners typically “accept their fate, vacate the property, and sign it over, instead of taking it through the courts.”

Cadena clarified, “just because they weren’t formally foreclosed upon, doesn’t mean they didn’t lose the property or that it wasn’t taken away from them.” There are alternative options to surrender your property, such as a “claims without conveyance of title” or “deed in lieu of foreclosure.” The courts foreclosure process takes a longer time and is something that most people try to avoid. He said, “more often than not, owners pursue options of property transfer that keep the foreclosure out of the courts and off public record.”

Cadena presented his observations and foreclosure trend predictions to the Board of Realtors at their monthly luncheon on April 2, 2025. The meeting was closed to the public. Connect Del Rio will continue to track foreclosure announcements and work with the private and public sector to monitor the situation. Updates should become available in approximately 90 days, when some of the properties being appraised now are expected to be listed for public sale.