September saw double-digit declines in foreclosure inventory on a year-over-year basis, but also a nearly 50-percent surge in completed foreclosures on a month-over-month basis, according to property information provider CoreLogic’s latest National Foreclosure Report.
According to the report, from September 2014 to this past September, foreclosure inventory declined by 24.3 percent, completed foreclosures declined by 17.6 percent and the number of seriously delinquent mortgages declined by 21.2 percent.
“The rate of delinquencies continues to drop back closer to historic norms powered by improved economic conditions and tighter post-recession underwriting standards,” said Anand Nallathambi, CoreLogic’s president and CEO. “As we head into 2016, based on almost every major metric, the fundamentals underpinning the housing market are healthier than any time since 2007.”
However, CoreLogic also noted that completed foreclosures increased by 49.5 percent from August to September. The company attributed the one-month surge in part to an annual public auctioning of thousands of tax-foreclosed properties in the Detroit area.
In addition, CoreLogic reported that while the majority of states experienced declines in their foreclosure rates, four states actually experienced small increases compared with a year ago: New Mexico, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and Wyoming.
States with the highest number of completed foreclosures on a year-over-year basis were: Florida with 91,000 completed foreclosures; Michigan, with 45,000; Texas, with 32,000; Georgia, with 26,000; and California, with 26,000. These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally, CoreLogic said.
States with the lowest number of completed foreclosures on a year-over-year basis were: Washington, D.C., with 69 completed foreclosures; North Dakota, with 310; Wyoming, with 498; West Virginia, with 593; and Hawaii, with 690.
