About 41,000 foreclosures were completed in the U.S. in October, down a whopping 34.1% compared to the approximately 62,000 reported in September and down 26.4% compared to the approximately 55,000 reported in October 2013, according to CoreLogic's October National Foreclosure Report.
October's total is also a year-over-year decrease of about 65% compared to the peak of completed foreclosures in September 2010.
CoreLogic points out that from 2000 to 2006, completed foreclosures averaged around 21,000 per month.
Since September 2008, there have been approximately 5.3 million completed foreclosures across the country, according to the data and analytics firm. More than 7 million homes have been lost to foreclosure since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004.
As of October, there were about 605,000 homes in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, a decrease of about 2.1% compared to September and down 30.9% compared to the 875,000 recorded in October 2013.
The foreclosure inventory as of October made up 1.6% of all homes with a mortgage, down from 2.2% in October 2013 to reach the lowest level since May 2008.
‘While there has been a large improvement in the reduction of foreclosure inventory, completed foreclosures remain high and serve as one of the obstacles to new single-family construction,’ explains Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic, in a release. ‘Until the flow of completed foreclosures declines to normal levels, new-home construction will not pick up because builders have little incentive to compete with foreclosure stock.’
Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, says at current rates, ‘we can expect the foreclosure inventory to slip below 500,000 units during 2015.’
In October, all but one state and the District of Columbia posted double-digit declines in foreclosure inventory year-over-year; West Virginia saw a decline of only 8.9%, and the District of Columbia saw a 17.3% increase.
Nineteen states showed declines in year-over-year foreclosure inventory of greater than 30 percent, with Florida (-44.9%) and Utah (-41.6%) experiencing the largest declines.
States with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ended in October were Florida (118,000), Michigan (45,000), Texas (36,000), California (29,000) and Georgia (28,000). These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.
States that saw the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the same period included South Dakota (59), District of Columbia (70), North Dakota (257), West Virginia (515) and Wyoming (574).
States with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes included New Jersey (5.5%), Florida (4.1%), New York (4.1%), Hawaii (2.9%) and Maine (2.6%).
States with the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were Alaska (0.4%), Minnesota (0.5%), Nebraska (0.5%), North Dakota (0.5%) and Wyoming (0.5%).
CoreLogic notes that its September foreclosure data has been revised.
