The U.S. foreclosure inventory declined by 27.3 percent in February and completed foreclosures declined by 15.7 percent from February 2014, according to a new report from real estate data and analytics provider CoreLogic. According to CoreLogic, there were 39,000 completed foreclosures nationwide in February 2015, down from 46,000 in February 2014 and representing a decrease of 67 percent from the peak of completed foreclosures in September 2010.
Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.6 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 7.7 million homes lost to foreclosure.
CoreLogic also reports the number of mortgages in serious delinquency declined by 19.3 percent from February 2014 to February 2015 with 1.5 million mortgages, or 4 percent, in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due, including those loans in foreclosure or REO). This is the lowest delinquency rate since June 2008. On a month-over-month basis, the number of seriously delinquent mortgages declined by 1.1 percent.
As of February 2015 the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 553,000 homes, compared to 761,000 homes in February 2014. The foreclosure inventory as of February 2015 represented 1.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage, compared to 1.9 percent in February 2014.
“The number of homes in foreclosure proceedings fell by 27 percent from a year ago and stands at about one-third of what it was at the trough of the housing cycle,” Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic, said in a statement. “While the drop in the share of mortgages in foreclosure to 1.4 percent is a welcome sign of continued recovery in the housing market, the share remains more than double the 0.6 percent average foreclosure rate that we saw during 2000-2004.”
On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures were down 11.6 percent from the 44,000 reported in January 2015. As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.
On a month-over-month basis, the foreclosure inventory was down by 1.4 percent from January 2015. The February 2015 foreclosure rate of 1.4 percent is back to March 2008 levels.
Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes: New Jersey (5.3 percent), New York (4.0 percent), Florida (3.4 percent), Hawaii (2.8 percent) and the District of Columbia (2.6 percent). The foreclosure inventory rate in Massachusetts was 1.4 percent, ranking 20th among all states but up slightly (0.1 percent) from the same time last year. The serious delinquency rate in Massachusetts was 4.1 percent.
Forty-four state posted a year-over-year, double-digit decline in foreclosures. Massachusetts was one of two states and the District of Columbia which experienced an increase in foreclosures, with the number of foreclosures rising 6.6 percent year-over-year. The other was Wyoming (up 14.8 percent); the District of Colombia saw a 32.6 percent increase.
