Foreclosures See an Increase After Months of Decline

October foreclosure filings increased 27 percent from the previous month after experiencing a 129-month low in September, according to the latest U.S. Foreclosure Market Report from ATTOM Data Solutions.

Despite increases month-over-month in foreclosure starts, bank repossessions (REO), and scheduled foreclosure auctions, these trends including total foreclosure filings still saw a marginal decline year-over-year.

"Part of this could be tied somewhat to the election with lenders holding back for the last few months as there are uncertainty around the election," says Daren Blomquist, SVP of ATTOM Data Solutions. "Even though they didn't know the outcome in October when we saw this activity take place, there was probably a lot of certainty thinking that Clinton would win. I think with this certainty, lenders went ahead and pushed through more foreclosures."

The report also found that 28 states and the District of Columbia experienced an increase in foreclosure activity from the previous year, despite the national trend of decline.

"Some of these housing markets still have a backlog of distressed inventory and those do tend to be Northeast and Rust Belt States,” says Blomquist. “We are seeing a continuing of working through the backlog. What also really stood out in October was that in some of the states that seemed to put the foreclosure crisis behind them, we saw some pretty big jumps in foreclosure starts. This was in places like Arizona, Georgia and Colorado. A lot of this activity was tied not to loans in the last foreclosure crisis but loans originated since 2009."

Blomquist assures that foreclosure increases both national and state specific are nothing to be concerned about, though.

"A one month jump in foreclosure activity does not mean we are seeing a crisis again," he says. "But I think what it does say is that there is still risk in originating loans even in a very healthy and robust housing market, particularly with the lower down payment loans."

To read the full report from ATTOM Data Solutions, click HERE.