CoreLogic: Foreclosures Down 70% From Peak

CoreLogic, Irvine, Calif., said completed foreclosures ticked up slightly in March, but continued to fall from yearly and historic highs.

The company’s National Foreclosure Report showed completed foreclosures increased by 9.3 percent to 36,000 in March from the 33,000 reported for February. However, completed foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 42,000 in March 2015, representing a decrease of 69.7 percent from the peak of 117,782 in September 2010.

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.

The report also said the foreclosure inventory declined by 23.2 percent from a year ago. On a month-over-month basis, the foreclosure inventory was down 2.2 percent in March compared to February. As of March, the national foreclosure inventory included 427,000, or 1.1 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 556,000 homes, or 1.4 percent, in March 2015. The March foreclosure inventory rate is the lowest for any month since October 2007.

Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, CoreLogic reported 6.2 million completed foreclosures nationally; since homeownership rates peaked in second quarter 2004, 8.2 million homes have been lost to foreclosure.

CoreLogic also reported the number of mortgages in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due including loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 19.1 percent year over year, with 1.2 million mortgages, or 3.1 percent. The March serious delinquency rate is the lowest since November 2007.

“Delinquencies and foreclosure rates are now at pre-crash levels as the benefits of higher home prices, improving economic fundamentals and years of cautious underwriting are being felt across the country,” said CoreLogic President and CEO Anand Nallathambi. “Longer term, as loans made since 2009 account for a larger share of outstanding debt, we anticipate that the serious delinquency rate will have further substantive declines.”

The report said states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in March were Florida (69,000), Michigan (48,000), Texas (28,000), Georgia (23,000) and California (23,000). These five states accounted for about 41 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally. States with the lowest number of completed foreclosures were the District of Columbia (114), North Dakota (311), West Virginia (541), Wyoming (634) and Alaska (644).

States with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes in March were New Jersey (4.0 percent), New York (3.3 percent), Hawaii (2.3 percent), the District of Columbia (2.2 percent) and Florida (2.1 percent). States with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate were Alaska (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.4 percent), Arizona (0.4 percent), Colorado (0.4 percent) and Utah (0.4 percent).

“Job and earnings growth have helped bring serious delinquency rates down in nearly every state. However, serious delinquency rates increased in North Dakota and West Virginia, two states affected by the drop in demand for the fuel each produces,” said CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft.

The Mortgage Bankers Association will present its First Quarter National Delinquency Survey this Thursday, May 12.

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.