CoreLogic: June Foreclosures Up Slightly; Inventory Lowest Since 2007
CoreLogic, Irvine, Calif., reported 38,000 completed foreclosures in June, up by 5.1 percent from May but down by 4.9 percent from a year ago.
The company’s National Foreclosure Report also said the nation’s foreclosure inventory fell to its lowest rate since August 2007, representing 375,000, or 1 percent, of all homes with a mortgage. This compared to 507,000 homes (1.3 percent) a year ago.
The report said since the financial crisis began in September 2008, 6.3 million completed foreclosures have taken place; since homeownership rates peaked in second quarter 2004, 8.4 million homes have been lost to foreclosure. Before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.
CoreLogic also reporte mortgages in serious delinquency (90 days or more past due including loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 21.3 percent from a year ago (1.1 million mortgages, or 2.8 percent) The June serious delinquency rate is the lowest in nearly nine years, since September 2007.
“Mortgage loan performance depends on the economic health of local markets, with varied differences even within a state,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic.
The report noted within Texas, the serious delinquency rate in the Dallas metropolitan area fell by 0.5 percent from a year earlier, as home prices and employment continued to rise. The rate in the Midland area, on the other hand, jumped by 0.5 percent, reflecting weakness in oil production and job loss over the past year.
Other report data:
–The foreclosure inventory fell by 3.6 percent from May.
–States with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in June were Florida (60,000), Michigan (47,000), Texas (27,000), Ohio (23,000) and California (22,000). These five states account for almost 40 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.
–States with the lowest number of completed foreclosures were The District of Columbia (179), North Dakota (321), West Virginia (487), Alaska (639) and Montana (675).
–States with the highest foreclosure inventory rate were New Jersey (3.4 percent), New York (3.1 percent), the District of Columbia (2 percent), Hawaii (2 percent) and Maine (1.9 percent).
–States with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate were Colorado (0.3 percent), Michigan (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.3 percent), Nebraska (0.3 percent) and Utah (0.3 percent).
“The impact of the inexorable reduction over the past several years in both foreclosure trends and serious delinquencies is driving the long-awaited return to more historic norms for the U.S. housing market,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “We expect the combination of continued home price appreciation of more than 5 percent and rising employment levels in the year ahead will help cement the gains we have had and perhaps accelerate them.”
The Mortgage Bankers Association releases its Second Quarter National Delinquency Survey this Thursday, Aug. 11.
The NDS, conducted since 1953, covers 39 million loans on one- to four- unit residential properties, representing 88 percent of all “first-lien” residential mortgage loans outstanding in the United States. Loans surveyed were reported by more than 100 lenders, including mortgage bank, commercial banks and thrifts.
Recent NDS reports have noted continued drops in both mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates, albeit still at elevated levels resulting from loans made during the Great Recession.
The report comes out at 10:00 a.m. ET. MBA NewsLink and MBA Servicing NewsLink will provide coverage, with commentary from the MBA Research & Economics team.
