Texas Still Among Nation’s Lowest in Foreclosure Inventory

Despite having the third highest number of completed foreclosures of any state for the 12-month period ending August 31, 2014, Texas still had the 10th lowest foreclosure inventory percentage of any state for the month of August, according to CoreLogic.

The Lone Star State's total of 36,466 completed foreclosures during that 12-month period were third only to Florida (120,842) and Michigan (42,960), but at the same time, the foreclosure inventory (number of homes in any state of foreclosure) for Texas came in at 0.7 percent for August. This number represented a decline of 0.3 percentage points from August 2013 for Texas (a 30 percent decline) and is well below the national foreclosure inventory average of 1.6 percent, according to CoreLogic.

Texas was not the only state where foreclosure inventory was way down, however. In all, 28 states reported a year-over-year decline in foreclosure inventory of more than 30 percent, led by Utah and Idaho at 46 percent each, according to CoreLogic.

Completed foreclosures for the 12-month period ending in August were down 20 percent in Texas, which reported nearly 46,000 completed foreclosures for the same period in 2013, CoreLogic reported. The decline in completed foreclosures in Texas mirrored that of the entire nation, which sank from 719,601 down to 575,706, a decline of 20 percent. And August was the 19th consecutive month in which there was a 20 percent or greater year-over-year decrease in foreclosure inventory, all signs that seem to point to a housing market that back on the rise.

"The number of foreclosures completed during the last 12 months is at the lowest level since November of 2007," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "At current foreclosure rates, the shadow inventory could fall below 500,000 units by year-end which could provide a solid boost to the recovery in housing in 2015."