There were about 36,000 completed foreclosures in September – an increase of 5.2% compared with about 34,000 in August and a decrease of 7.0% compared with about 39,000 in September 2015, according to CoreLogic’s national foreclosure report.
What’s more, completed foreclosures were down 69.7% from the peak of 118,222 in September 2010.
States with the highest numbers of completed foreclosures in September, year over year, were Florida (53,000), Texas (27,000), Michigan (24,000), Ohio (23,000) and Georgia (21,000). These five states accounted for 36% of completed foreclosures nationally.
States with the lowest numbers of completed foreclosures included the District of Columbia (186), North Dakota (338), West Virginia (447), Alaska (643) and Montana (701).
The national foreclosure inventory also continued to shrink. As of September, it included approximately 340,000 properties, or 0.9% of all homes with a mortgage, compared with 493,000 homes, or 1.3%, in September 2015. That’s a decrease of about 31%. On a month-over-month basis, the foreclosure inventory was down 3.1% compared with August.
States with the highest foreclosure inventory rates in September included New Jersey (3.0%), New York (2.7%), Maine (1.8%), Hawaii (1.8%) and the District of Columbia (1.6%).
States with the lowest foreclosure inventory rates were Colorado (0.3%), Minnesota (0.3%), Arizona (0.3%), Michigan (0.3%) and Utah (0.3%).
Serious delinquencies also continued to plummet, as they have throughout most of this year. As of the end of September, there were about 1 million mortgages that were seriously delinquent (90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure or real estate owned). That’s down 24.8% from September 2015.
“September’s serious delinquency rate dropped by 25 percent compared to a year earlier – the third consecutive monthly acceleration in the rate of decline,” says Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic, in a statement. “This improvement is continued evidence of the recovery in the housing market, especially given that the decreases were fairly uniform in most cities across the country.”
“Completed foreclosures have fallen by a total of more than 100,000 homes during the 12 months prior to September 2016,” adds Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The decline in foreclosures is one of the drivers in the drop in vacancies, which is positive for homeowners and communities. Heading into 2017, we see that prices, performance and production – the three most important drivers of the real estate market – are all improving.”
