CoreLogic: April Foreclosures Up; Inventory Down
CoreLogic, Irvine, Calif., said foreclosure activity increased slightly in April, but continued to drop from a year ago. It also reported the nation’s foreclosure inventory fell to the lowest level since September 2007.
The company’s April National Foreclosure Report said completed foreclosures increased by 0.3 percent to 37,000 in April from 36,000 reported in March. As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006. On a month-over-month basis, the foreclosure inventory was down 3 percent compared to March.
From a year ago, however, completed foreclosures nationwide decreased by 15.8 percent from 43,000 in April 2015, representing a decrease of 68.9 percent from the peak of 117,813 in September 2010. The foreclosure inventory declined by 23.4 percent from a year ago. The national foreclosure inventory included 406,000, or 1.1 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 530,000 homes, or 1.4 percent, a year ago. The April foreclosure inventory rate is the lowest for any month since September 2007.
CoreLogic said since the financial crisis began in September 2008, 6.2 million completed foreclosures have taken place; and since homeownership rates peaked in second quarter 2004, 8.3 million homes have been lost to foreclosure.
CoreLogic also reported mortgages in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due including loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 21.6 percent from a year ago, with 1.1 million mortgages, or 3 percent. The serious delinquency rate is the lowest since October 2007.
“The recovery in home prices and improved labor market have contributed to the drop in seriously delinquent rates,” said CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic.
Other report highlights:
–States with the highest number of completed foreclosures were Florida (66,000), Michigan (47,000), Texas (27,000), Ohio (23,000) and California (23,000). These states accounted for 40 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.
–States with the lowest number of completed foreclosures were The District of Columbia (128), North Dakota (317), West Virginia (482), Alaska (653) and Montana (695).
–States with the highest foreclosure inventory rate were New Jersey (3.7 percent), New York (3.2 percent), Hawaii (2.2 percent), the District of Columbia (2.1 percent) and Florida (2 percent).
–States with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate were Alaska (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.3 percent), Utah (0.4 percent), Arizona (0.4 percent) and Colorado (0.4 percent).
