Dayton, Ohio: Job losses boost foreclosures

— -- The city of Dayton, Ohio, may have escaped the real estate bubble, but it has been burdened by other problems. It has been bleeding automotive manufacturing jobs for the past seven years, and that has hammered its housing market.

Since 2000, the Dayton area has lost about 30,000 manufacturing jobs, said Richard Stock, director of the University of Dayton Business Research Group.

The housing market hit a snag last year after General Motors announced that it would be closing its plant in nearby Moraine, affecting about 1,100 workers. In December, home sales were down 10.3% compared with a year earlier. And for the year, sales plummeted 16.1%.

With jobs down, the unemployment rate has risen to 8.1%, a little higher than the national rate, Stock says.

And Dayton's home foreclosure rate went up 18% last year, according to RealtyTrac. Its foreclosure rate ranked No. 34 out of the top 100 metro cities.

"I think job loss is the biggest cause of foreclosure," says Harry Vearn, president of the Dayton Area Board of Realtors. "And that has brought home prices down."

Unlike many cities, the local housing market seldom has big surges. "We usually stay pretty even," Vearn says.

And the Dayton metro area has some saving grace.

It is home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and by 2011 it will have an additional 1,400 military, civilian and contractor jobs, Vearn says.

Even though Dayton has been losing auto manufacturing employment, it still had 399,000 jobs last year, Stock says. Information technology is one sector that the city counts on. It includes Teradata, Reynolds and Reynolds, and LexisNexis.

Like every city, Dayton is coping with the economic meltdown. But it has an advantage, Stock says: "We are more familiar with these difficulties than others."