Foreclosures Down, Except in 3 States

Foreclosure activity still hasn’t bottomed out since the crisis. According to the April 2017 Foreclosure Market report, foreclosure actions were down 7 percent from March and 23 percent from April 2016. They’ve now reached their lowest point since late 2005.

Released by ATTOM Data Solutions on Wednesday, the report shows a total of 77,049 foreclosure filings for April, which includes all default notices, bank repossessions, and scheduled auctions. About one in every 1,723 households was under foreclosure for the month.

New Jersey had the highest rate of foreclosure, with one in every 562 households. Rounding out the top five were Delaware (1:706); Maryland (1:776); Connecticut (1:956); and Illinois (1:1,083). At the metro level, Atlantic City, New Jersey, took the cake, with one foreclosure for every 237 households. Also coming in with highest rates of foreclosure were Fayetteville, North Carolina (1:615); Trenton, New Jersey (1:620); Rockford, Illinois (1:668); and Philadelphia (1:733).

Foreclosure starts and completions were also down in April, dropping 22 percent each over the year. Just over 34,000 homes entered the foreclosure process for the month, while lenders finalized the foreclosure process on about 26,000. Before the recession, there were an average 77,000 foreclosure starts each month and 25,796 completions.

But, while foreclosures on the whole may be down, repeat foreclosures are actually up—and significantly in certain parts of the country. They were highest in New York City, where 54 percent of foreclosures were repeats. Of the city’s five boroughs, Brooklyn had the biggest share.

“Foreclosure activity continued to search for a new post-recession floor in April thanks in large part to the above-par performance of mortgages originated in the past seven years,” said Daren Blomquist, SVP at ATTOM Data Solutions. “Meanwhile we are seeing an elevated share of repeat foreclosures on homeowners who often fell into default several years ago but have not been able to avoid foreclosure despite the housing recovery.”

General foreclosures were also up annually in the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, as wells as three metro areas: St. Louis, Houston, and Boston.

Read the full report at ATTOMdata.com.