ATTOM: Foreclosure Filings in 1st Half of 2020 Fall to Record Low

Things are kind of dicey in the housing finance market right now, with the economic impact of the coronavirus spiking unemployment and mortgage forbearance. But ATTOM Data Solutions, Irvine, Calif., says for now there is a silver lining.

The company’s Midyear 2020 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows 165,530 properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — in the first six months of 2020, down 44 percent from the same period a year ago and down 54 percent from the same period two years ago.

Only 10 of the 220 metro areas analyzed in the report, including Stockton, California (up 161 percent); Chico, Calif. (up 61 percent); McAllen, Texas (up 42 percent); Lake Havasu, Ariz. (up 39 percent); and Fort Wayne, Ind. (up 21 percent).

Ohan Antebia, General Manager of RealtyTrac, the parent company of ATTOM, said the downward trend in foreclosures is likely to continue as forbearance actions and federal prohibitions on lenders from pursuing delinquent loans until at least the end of August remain in effect (the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey https://newslink.mba.org/mba-newslinks/2020/july/mba-newslink-monday-july-13-2020-special-edition/mba-share-of-loans-in-forbearance-falls-4th-straight-week/reported this week that 4.1 million American households are in forbearance).

“The residential foreclosure market across the nation continues to contract amid a combination of booming housing market conditions before the current coronavirus pandemic hit and a moratorium on activity while the country struggles to overcome the crisis,” Antebian said. “Foreclosure starts and completions were already declining rapidly last year because the housing market and the economy were riding so high. Now they’re down to lows not seen for at least 15 years.”

Antebian noted, however, distressed property volume “is almost guaranteed to increase significantly once the moratorium is lifted because millions of Americans missed their mortgage payments in June and will continue to because of unemployment. But for now, everything is on hold and the foreclosure numbers reflect that pause.”

Key report findings:

–Nationwide 0.12 percent of all housing units (one in every 824) had a foreclosure filing in the first half of 2020.

–States with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of 2020 were Delaware (0.28 percent); New Jersey (0.25 percent); Illinois (0.24 percent); Maryland (0.21 percent); and Connecticut (0.18 percent)

Among 220 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of 2020 were Peoria, Ill. (0.37 percent); Trenton, N.J. (0.36 percent); Rockford, Ill. (0.36 percent); Atlantic City, N.J. (0.32 percent); and Lake Havasu, Ariz. (0.30 percent).

–99,028 properties started the foreclosure process in the first six months of 2020, down 44 percent from a year ago to the lowest six-month total going back to the second half of 2005, the earliest data available. Just three states—Tennessee, Idaho and Indiana—posted year over year increases in foreclosure starts.

–Lenders foreclosed on 37,917 U.S. properties in the first six months of 2020, down 44 percent from a year ago to the lowest six-month total since ATTOM began tracking in 2005.

ATTOM reported 30,656 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in Q2 2020, down 80 percent from previous quarter as well as a year ago to lowest quarterly total since Q1 2006. The national foreclosure activity total in Q2 2020 was 89 percent below the pre-recession average of 278,912 per quarter from Q1 2006 to Q3 2007, making Q2 2020 the 15th consecutive quarter with foreclosure activity below the pre-recession average.

–Properties foreclosed in the second quarter took an average of 685 days from the first public foreclosure notice to complete the foreclosure process, up from 673 days in the previous quarter but down from 716 days in the second quarter of 2019.

–Nationwide in June one in every 14,798 properties had a foreclosure filing

–States with the highest foreclosure rates in June were Maryland (one in every 5,393 housing units); New Mexico (one in every 6,346 housing units); Delaware (one in every 6,798 housing units); New Jersey (one in every 8,800 housing units); and South Carolina (one in every 9,326 housing units).

–4,869 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in June, up 12 percent from the previous month but down 80 percent from a year ago.

–Lenders completed the foreclosure process on 2,504 U.S. properties in June, down 12 percent from the previous month and down 76 percent from a year ago.