Although the the total number of foreclosure actions on residential properties throughout the U.S. continued to decrease in 2017 – down 27% from 2016 and down 76% from the peak in 2010 to reach a 12-year low – the average number of days to complete a foreclosure reached the highest point since 2007, according to ATTOM Data Solutions’ recently released year-end foreclosure report.
As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, it took an average of 1,027 days to foreclose on a residential property – an increase of 14% from the end of the third quarter and up 28% compared with the fourth quarter of 2016.
It was the highest reading since ATTOM began tracking average foreclosure timelines in the first quarter of 2007.
States with the longest average time to foreclose in the fourth quarter included Indiana (2,370 days); Nevada (1,933 days); Florida (1,493 days); New Jersey (1,298 days) and Georgia (1,263 days).
Many of these are “legacy” loans that were originated prior to the start of the recession in September 2008. Nationwide, 50% of all loans actively in foreclosure as of the end of 2017 were originated between 2004 and 2008 – down from 55% a year ago.
States with the highest number of legacy foreclosures on loans originated between 2004 and 2008 were New York (25,886), New Jersey (20,172), Florida (19,494), California (9,847) and Illinois (8,732).
Legacy foreclosures on loans originated between 2004 and 2008 represented 74% of all active loans in foreclosure in the District of Columbia, higher than any state with at least 100 active loans in foreclosure, followed by Hawaii (67%), New Jersey (58%), Massachusetts (58%), Florida (55%) and Nevada (55%).
Counties with the highest total number of legacy foreclosures were Nassau County (Long Island), N.Y. (6,782); Cook County (Chicago), Ill. (5,478); Kings County (Brooklyn), N.Y. (4,677); Miami-Dade County, Fla. (3,804); and Suffolk County (Long Island), N.Y. (3,417).
