Foreclosure activity in March remained well below year-ago levels, but ticked up on a monthly basis as some states began to push properties through the foreclosure pipeline that have long languished in delinquency, RealtyTrac reported.
Foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 117,485 U.S. properties in March, down 23 percent year over year but up 4 percent compared to February, according to RealtyTrac’s latest U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.
RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said that the monthly increase is a result of banks turning their attention to properties that have been caught in “foreclosure limbo” now that the foreclosure crisis has receded.
“This is most evident in judicial foreclosure states that were more likely to have impediments in the foreclosure process, but there are also signs of this catch-up trend happening in some nonjudicial states like California, where an increasing number of judicial foreclosure filings boosted foreclosure starts in the first quarter,” he said.
In judicial states, a judge must sign off on a foreclosure, whereas in nonjudicial states they need not.
Source: RealtyTrac
