Foreclosure Starts Fell 6% In April
About 34,085 foreclosures were started in April – down 6% compared with March and down 22% compared with April 2016, according to ATTOM Data Solutions.
That’s well below the pre-recession average of more than 77,000 foreclosure starts per month between April 2005 and November 2007.
However, there were certain states where foreclosure starts ticked up compared with a year earlier, including Connecticut (up 40%); Massachusetts (up 34%); Alabama (up 10%); Missouri (up 10%); Oregon (up 7%); and Illinois (up 6%).
About 25,990 foreclosures were completed in April – down 9% compared with March and down 22% compared with a year earlier to reach the lowest level since February 2015, ATTOM reports.
As of the end of April, completed foreclosures were running just above the pre-recession average of 25,796 per month.
States that saw the highest year-over-year increases in completed foreclosures included New Jersey (up 45%), Arizona (up 25%), Louisiana (up 2%), Connecticut (up 4%) and Oklahoma (up 7%).
Total foreclosure filings – including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions – were reported on 77,049 U.S. properties in April, which is down 7% from the previous month and down 23% from a year ago to reach the lowest level since November 2005.
“Foreclosure activity continued to search for a new post-recession floor in April, thanks, in large part, to the above-par performance of mortgages originated in the past seven years,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions, in a statement.
Blomquist notes, however, that in certain areas, “we are seeing an elevated share of repeat foreclosures on homeowners who often fell into default several years ago but have not been able to avoid foreclosure despite the housing recovery.”
The report takes a look at repeat foreclosure starts in five markets, including the five boroughs of New York City; Essex County, N.Y.; Miami-Dade County; Los Angeles County; and Maricopa County (Phoenix), in April. Of those five markets, repeat foreclosures were highest in New York City (54%), followed by Los Angeles (39%), Miami-Dade County (32%), Maricopa County (26%) and Essex County (20%).
Foreclosure Activity Fell Below Pre-Recession Levels In Q1
Foreclosure activity in the first quarter fell to the lowest level in 11 years, and the trend is expected to continue into the second quarter, according to ATTOM Data Solutions.
The firm’s U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows that foreclosure filings – including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions – were reported on 234,508 U.S. properties in the first quarter, which is down 11% from the fourth quarter and down 19% from the first quarter of 2016 to reach the lowest level since the third quarter of 2006.
“U.S. foreclosure activity on a quarterly basis first dipped below pre-recession averages in the fourth quarter of last year, and this report shows that trend continuing,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president with ATTOM Data Solutions, in a statement. “The number of local markets dropping below pre-recession levels continues to grow – up from 78 a year ago to 102 in this report.”
Metropolitan areas that were below their pre-recession levels for foreclosure activity in the first quarter included Los Angeles, Dallas and Houston. Other major markets below pre-recession averages included San Francisco; Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.; Phoenix; Detroit; and Seattle.
However, the report shows that certain markets are improving much faster than others. Of the 216 metro markets tracked, 114, or 53%, were still above their pre-recession averages for foreclosure activity.
Looking just at March, there were about 36,370 foreclosure starts – up 6% compared with February but still down 24% compared with March 2016.
March marked the second consecutive month that foreclosure starts increased.
