About 45,000 foreclosures were completed across the U.S. in July – down 8.5% from about 49,000 in June and down 21.2% compared to the approximately 57,000 completed in July 2013, according to CoreLogic.
About 640,000 homes were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, in July – down 3.3% compared to June and down 34.4% compared to July 2013. These homes accounted for about 1.6% of all homes with a mortgage, compared to 2.4% in July 2013.
As of July, the foreclosure inventory had fallen for 33 consecutive months, on a year-over-year basis.
Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.1 million completed foreclosures across the country, CoreLogic reports.
‘The stock of distressed debt continues to rapidly decline, especially in western states,' says Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. ‘The number of seriously delinquent loans fell by more than 25 percent from the prior year in 10 states, and seven of those states were in the west.’
Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, says if the housing market continues to heal at the current pace, there could be as few as 500,000 homes in foreclosure inventory by the end of this year.
‘The picture is considerably brighter in the non-judicial states, which maintain consistently lower foreclosure stocks and, in general, lower levels of serious delinquency,’ Nallathambi says, adding that as of July, there were 36 states with an inventory of foreclosed homes lower than the national rate of 1.7%.
States with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in July included Florida (120,000), Michigan (44,000), Texas (38,000), California (32,000) and Georgia (31,000). These five states account for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.
States (including the District of Columbia) with the lowest number of completed foreclosures, year over year, included South Dakota (73), the District of Columbia (110), North Dakota (307), West Virginia (498) and Wyoming (677).
States with the highest foreclosure inventory, as a percentage of all mortgaged homes, in July included New Jersey (5.7%), Florida (4.8%), New York (4.3%), Hawaii (3.0%) and Maine (2.7%).
States with the lowest foreclosure inventory included Nebraska (0.4%), Alaska (0.4%), Arizona (0.5%), Minnesota (0.5%) and North Dakota (0.5%).
CoreLogic notes that it revised its June foreclosure data.
