[1]Five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationwide in the 12-month period ending in August 2014, according to CoreLogic [2]'s August National Foreclosure Report released on Thursday.
Florida (121,000), Michigan (43,000), Texas (36,000), California (32,000), and Georgia (28,000) combined for 260,000 completed foreclosures from September 2013 to August 2014, a total that comprised 45 percent of the nationwide number of 576,000 that occurred during that period, according to CoreLogic.
South Dakota had the lowest number of completed foreclosures in the last 12 months with just 65, according to CoreLogic. Next were Washington, D.C. (110), North Dakota (295), West Virginia (462), and Wyoming (650).
The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida core based statistical area (CSBA) had the highest number of completed foreclosures of any CSBA in the nation for the 12-month period ending in August 2014 with 19,153, according to CoreLogic. The Tampa CSBA also had the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of mortgages of any CSBA in August, with 5.6 percent, and the highest serious delinquency rate of any CSBA in August, with 9.9 percent, according to CoreLogic.
Rounding out the top five CSBAs in total completed foreclosures for the 12-month period ending in August 2014 were Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia (16,834), Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida (14,375), Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, Illinois (11,341), and Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona (8,588).
New Jersey topped the list of states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of mortgages for August with 5.8 percent. Florida (4.6 percent), New York (4.2 percent), Hawaii (3.0 percent), and Maine (2.7 percent) rounded out the top five, CoreLogic reported.
The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of mortgages in August were Nebraska (0.4 percent), Alaska (0.5 percent), Arizona (0.5 percent), North Dakota (0.5 percent), and Wyoming (0.5 percent), according to CoreLogic.
CoreLogic reported that 36 states had a foreclosure inventory percentage lower than the national rate in August, which was 1.6 percent. Twenty-eight states reported a year-over-year decline in foreclosure inventory of 30 percent or more in August, according to CoreLogic. The two states with the largest year-over-year decline in foreclosure inventory were Utah and Idaho, each with 46 percent each.