Black Knight: Foreclosure Rates Continue Decline

Black Knight Financial Services, Jacksonville, Fla., said mortgage foreclosures and delinquencies continued to drop in October, with foreclosure inventories reaching their lowest level since 2007.  

The company’s First Look Mortgage Monitor report said foreclosure starts fell by 8.4 percent in October to 73,200 and fell by 11.3 percent from a year ago. Both first-time and repeat foreclosure starts fell in October, 7 percent and 11 percent month over month, respectively, with first time starts remaining near post-crisis lows.  

The report also said after two consecutive months of increases, the total delinquency rate declined by nearly 2 percent from September. Inventory of loans in foreclosure, at 721,000, reached its lowest point since December 2007.  

The only downside: the number of seriously delinquent loans (90 or more days past due, but not yet in foreclosure) ticked up slightly by 1.9 percent in October (+3,000), but remained down by nearly 250,000 (12 percent) from a year ago.  

The report said prepayment speeds rose slightly for the month, with a single month mortality rate of 1.09 percent.  

Black Knight reported the total U.S. foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate at 1.43 percent, down by 2.35 percent from September and down by 21.16 percent from a year ago.  

Other report highlights:

–Properties 30 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure: 2.415 million, a drop of 42,000 from September and a drop of 316,000 from a year ago.

–Properties 90 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure: 820,000, down by 3,000 from September and by 249,000 from a year ago.

–Properties 30 or more days past due or in foreclosure: 3.136 million, down by 58,000 from September and down by 507,000 from a year ago.

–States with the highest rate of non-current loans: Mississippi (12.48 percent); New Jersey (10.48 percent); Louisiana (9.80 percent); New York (9.06 percent); and Maine (8.93 percent).

–States with lowest rate of non-current loans: North Dakota (2.12 percent); Alaska (2.50 percent); Colorado (2.90 percent); Minnesota (3.12 percent); and South Dakota (3.17 percent).