Foreclosure inventory was down in the Tampa, Florida, area in August but the area still led all core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) nationwide in foreclosure completions over a 12-month period, according to data recently released by CoreLogic.

In the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater CBSA, there were 19,153 completed foreclosures from September 2013 to August 2014, most of any CBSA in the nation for that time period, CoreLogic reported. The 19,000+ foreclosure completions in the Tampa area for that period accounted for 3.3 percent of the 575,706 foreclosure completions nationwide for those 12 months, according to CoreLogic. The state of Florida, with 120,842 foreclosure completions in those 12 months, accounted for 21 percent of foreclosure completions nationwide.

The Tampa CBSA also had the highest serious delinquency rate among the 25 CBSAs with the most foreclosure completions over 12 months, according to CoreLogic. Tampa's serious delinquency rate of 9.9 percent was ahead of Nassau County-Suffolk County, New York, and Newark, New Jersey-Pennsylvania, which tied for second place with a rate of 9.2 percent each. Serious delinquency is defined as being 90 days or more late on mortgage payments or in foreclosure. For August, the national average serious delinquency rate was 4.3 percent, CoreLogic reported.

Tampa's foreclosure inventory, or the number of residential properties in some state of foreclosure, fell by 3 percentage points in August from the same month a year ago, according to CoreLogic. In August 2014, Tampa reported that 5.6 percent of all residential mortgages nationwide were in some state of foreclosure, tied with Nassau-Suffolk County for second only to Newark (5.8 percent) among the top 25 CBSAs in foreclosure completions over the previous 12 months, Corelogic reported. The national average foreclosure inventory rate was 1.6 percent for August.

Three other CBSAs reported more than 10,000 foreclosure completions from September 2013 to August 2014, according to CoreLogic: Atlanta-Roswell-Sandy Springs, Georgia (16,834), Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida (14,375), and Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, Illinois (11,341).