On the other hand, the county still was a bit lower than the national average in performance. The cause of this are the difficulties that the area has encountered during the current recession, which has lasted here than in most other areas, and is now going into its' third year. In fact, over 15 metro areas had more foreclosures, while over 30 had lower rate of hiring.
The county's number of new filings for foreclosure was down by 0.15%. During the 4th
quarter of 2009, property values were 5 1/2 % below those of the preceding year, which was better than the average lowering of values in the upper one hundred metropolitan areas. These numbers do, however, contrast with those from various other information gathering entities which indicate that the price of homes in the county actually increased during the last quarter of 20090.
Generally, the economic indicators for the upper one hundred biggest metro areas support the nationwide account of a fairly frail, cautious and underemployed recovery.
