The U.S. foreclosure inventory declined by 25.7 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 15.5 percent in March compared with the same time last year, according to a new report from real estate data and analytics provider CoreLogic. There were 41,000 completed foreclosures nationwide in March 2015, down from 48,000 in March 2014, representing a decrease of 65.2 percent from the peak of completed foreclosures in September 2010, according to CoreLogic’s data.
The number of mortgages in serious delinquency declined by 19.1 percent from March 2014 to March 2015, with 1.5 million mortgages, or 3.9 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 May 2008. On a month-over-month basis, the number of seriously delinquent mortgages declined by 1.9 percent.
As of March 2015, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 542,000 homes, or 1.4 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 729,000 homes, or 1.9 percent, in March 2014, representing a year-over-year decline of 25.7 percent.
“We are seeing additional improvement in housing market conditions due to a decline in the serious delinquency rate to 3.9 percent, far below the peak of 8.6 percent in early 2010,” Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic, said in a statement. “Despite the decline in the number of loans that are 90 days or more delinquent or in foreclosure, the percent of homeowners struggling to keep up is still well above the pre-recession average of 1.5 percent.”
On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures increased by 7 percent from the 38,000 reported in February 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.
The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in March 2015 were: Florida (110,000), Michigan (50,000), Texas (34,000), Georgia (28,000) and Ohio (28,000). These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.
In Massachusetts, there were 3,645 foreclosures for the past 12 months ending in March, an increase of 0.2 percent from the same period last year, according to CoreLogic. The Bay State’s foreclosure inventory was a 1.4 percent, while 4 percent of Massachusetts homeowners were seriously delinquent, down 0.4 percent from the same time last year.
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 (3.9 percent), Florida (3.3 percent), Hawaii (2.7 percent) and the District of Columbia (2.5 percent).
