Foreclosures Down 66 Percent From Peak, but Still Twice Normal

Foreclosures during the 12 months ended on December 31 werernthe lowest recorded in the U.S. over that time period since November 2007rnCoreLogic said today.  The total of completedrnrepossessions during the period was 563,294 and December was the 34^{th</supstraight month to post a 12 month decline.</p}

Foreclosures in December were down 7,000 units to 39,000, a 13.7rnpercent decline from December 2013.  Thisrnwas also a 66 percent decline from the peak of completed foreclosures inrnSeptember 2010.  Month-over-monthrncompleted foreclosures were down 4.9 percent from the 41,000 reported inrnNovember.  Despite the many months ofrnimprovement in the foreclosure numbers, CoreLogic points out that completedrnforeclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide in the years 2000 to 2006 andrnsince the financial crisis began in September 2008 some 5.5 million homes havernbeen lost to foreclosure.</p

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Five large states together accountedrnfor almost half of foreclosures nationally for the 12 months ending in Decemberrn2014; Florida (118,000), Michigan (49,000), Texas (35,000), California (29,000)rnand Ohio (28,000). </p

“In 2014, the annual sum ofrncompleted foreclosures declined 15 percent from the 662,000 reported in 2013,”rnsaid Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “Completedrnforeclosures last year were less than half the 1.2 million peak in 2010, butrnremain twice the level of normal activity over 10 years ago.”</p

The foreclosure inventory, that is homes in some stage ofrnforeclosure, declined by slightly over one third between December 2013 andrnDecember 2014; from 840,000 units to 552,000. rnThis represented 1.4 percent of all mortgaged homes in the U.S., back torna rate last seen in March 2008, compared to a rate of 2.1 percent the previousrnyear.  The inventory was 2.9 percentrnlower than in November 2014.</p

All states posted double-digitrnyear-over-year declines in foreclosure inventory with the exception of WestrnVirginia, which only fell slightly short with a 9.5 percent decrease. Thirty-threernstates showed declines in year-over-year foreclosure inventory of greater thanrn30 percent.  Utah and Florida posted thernlargest declines, down 48.8 percent and 48.6 percent respectively.</p

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The District of Columbia experienced a<b21.7 percent increase and was among the areas with the highest foreclosurerninventory as a percentage of mortgaged homes at 2.4 percent.  The District was behind New Jersey at 5.2rnpercent, New York (4.0 percent), Florida (3.7 percent) and Hawaii (2.7rnpercent.) </p

“The steady decline in the numberrnof completed foreclosures is a good sign of healing in the U.S. housingrnmarket,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.rn”Nonetheless, there remain many pockets of the country with very highrnforeclosure inventories, underscoring the unevenness of the nation’s housingrnrecovery.”</p

The national serious delinquency rate,rndefined as 90 days or more past due, was 4.1 percent in December 2014, thernlowest rate since June 2008. The level of serious delinquencies in Decemberrn2014 was 21.6 percent lower than in December 2013. </p

Some states are still posting high seriousrndelinquency rates however, with most being those using a judicial foreclosurernprocess.  The three highest rates were inrnNew Jersey (9.0 percent), Florida (7.9 percent) and New York (7.3rnpercent).  The state in the non-judicialrnforeclosure column with the highest rate was Nevada at 5.4 percent followed byrnAlabama (4.5 percent) and Arkansas (4.4 percent).

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