The national foreclosure inventory declined by 23.2 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 14.9 percent compared with March 2015, according to the March 2016 National Foreclosure Report released today by CoreLogic, a property information and analytics provider.
The number of completed foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 42,000 in March 2015 to 36,000 in March 2016, representing a decrease of 69.7 percent from the peak of 117,782 in September 2010.
Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 6.2 million completed foreclosures nationally, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 8.2 million homes lost to foreclosure.
As of March 2016, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 427,000, or 1.1 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 556,000 homes, or 1.4 percent, in March 2015. The March 2016 foreclosure inventory rate is the lowest for any month since October 2007.
CoreLogic reported the number of mortgages in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due including loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 19.1 percent from March 2015 to March 2016, with 1.2 million mortgages, or 3.1 percent, in this category. The March 2016 serious delinquency rate is the lowest in more than eight years, since November 2007.
“Nationally, the economy added 609,000 jobs during the first three months of 2016, and average weekly earnings grew 2 percent over the past year,” Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic, said in a statement. “Job and earnings growth have helped bring serious delinquency rates down in nearly every state. However, serious delinquency rates increased in North Dakota and West Virginia, two states affected by the drop in demand for the fuel each produces.”
“Longer term, as loans made since 2009 account for a larger share of outstanding debt, we anticipate that the serious delinquency rate will have further substantive declines,” Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, said in a statement.
