More than 950 foreclosures were recorded in Massachusetts during the month of January, a 21.8 percent increase from the same month in 2007 and 4 percent more than a month earlier, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.
A total of 974 foreclosure deeds were recorded in January, up from 800 in January 2008 and 936 in December, according to statistics from WarrenGroupForeclosures.com.
But lenders started fewer foreclosure proceedings in January compared to a year ago. Lenders filed 1,960 petitions to foreclose in January, a 39 percent decline from the 3,212 petitions filed in January 2008. But foreclosure petitions jumped 20.6 percent from December when there were 1,625 foreclosure petitions. Foreclosure petitions, which are filed in Massachusetts Land Court, represent the first step in the foreclosure process.
"Several large banks and lending institutions have recently suspended foreclosures and lenders are facing more political pressure to slow down and work with borrowers, so that could be why there has been a 39 percent drop in the number of foreclosure petitions compared to a year earlier," said Timothy M. Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group. "But it’s important to note that foreclosure deeds have increased from a year earlier."
Warren added that "the pace of foreclosure deed recordings has actually remained fairly steady in Massachusetts over the last four months. We know that it can take many months between the time that a foreclosure is initiated and an actual foreclosure takes place, so some of the foreclosures that occurred in January could have been initiated during the first quarter of 2008 when lenders were filing about 3,000 foreclosure petitions per month."
The foreclosure process is taking on average three months longer than it did just two years ago, according to a recent report in Banker & Tradesman. The process, from the time a lender filed a petition to foreclose to when a foreclosure deed was recorded, took an average of 342 days in 2008 compared to 253 days in 2006.
The Warren Group tracked 1,300 auction announcements in January, down 22.8 percent from 1,684 in January 2008 and up 7.8 percent from 1,206 in December.
