Completed foreclosures jumped in March but remained well below the peak seen in 2010, according to CoreLogic.
There were about 36,000 completed foreclosures in March – an increase of 9.3% compared with 33,000 in February but a decrease of 14.9% compared with 42,000 in March 2015, according to CoreLogic.
A strong indication of how much the housing market has healed, the number of completed foreclosures in March was down 69.7% compared with September 2010, the peak of the foreclosure crisis, the firm reports.
Meanwhile, the national foreclosure inventory decreased 2.2% compared with February and decreased 23.2% compared with March 2015 to reach the lowest level since October 2007.
As of March, there were about 427,000 properties, or 1.1% of all homes with a mortgage, in the foreclosure inventory, which represents the number of homes at some stage of the foreclosure process. That’s down from 556,000 homes, or 1.4% of all homes with a mortgage, in March 2015.
Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 6.2 million completed foreclosures nationally – and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 8.2 million homes lost to foreclosure, CoreLogic says.
As of the end of March, about 1.2 million mortgages were seriously delinquent (90 days or more past due). That’s about 3.1% of all homes with a mortgage. It’s also a decrease of 19.1% compared with March 2015 and the lowest serious delinquency rate since November 2007.
“Nationally, the economy added 609,000 jobs during the first three months of 2016, and average weekly earnings grew two percent over the past year,” says Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Job and earnings growth have helped bring serious delinquency rates down in nearly every state. However, serious delinquency rates increased in North Dakota and West Virginia, two states affected by the drop in demand for the fuel each produces.”
“Delinquencies and foreclosure rates are now at pre-crash levels, as the benefits of higher home prices, improving economic fundamentals and years of cautious underwriting are being felt across the country,” adds Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Longer term, as loans made since 2009 account for a larger share of outstanding debt, we anticipate that the serious delinquency rate will have further substantive declines.”
