March Foreclosure Inventories Highest in New Jersey, New York, Hawaii

In the month of March, 36,000 U.S. home foreclosures were completed, up 9.3% month over month and down 14.9% from a total of 42,000 in March 2015, according to CoreLogic. The research firm notes that the current foreclosure inventory totals 1.1% of all homes with a mortgage in the United States, down from 1.4% in March of last year.

The number of U.S. homes currently in some stage of foreclosure totals approximately 427,000, compared with 556,000 in March 2015. That represents a decline in the national foreclosure inventory of 23.2% compared with March a year ago.

The four states and the District of Columbia with the largest foreclosed inventory as a percentage of mortgaged properties are New Jersey (4.0%), New York (3.3%), Hawaii (2.3%), D.C. (2.2%) and Florida (2.1%). The five states with the lowest inventories of foreclosed properties are Alaska (0.3%), Minnesota (0.4%), Colorado (0.4%), Arizona (0.4%) and Utah (0.4%).

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the past 12 months were Florida (69,000), Michigan (48,000), Texas (28,000), Georgia (23,000), and California (23,000). The five states with the fewest foreclosures in the prior 12 months through March were District of Columbia (114), North Dakota (311), West Virginia (541), Wyoming (634), and Alaska (644).
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CoreLogic’s chief economist said:

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. 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.

The company’s CEO added:

Delinquencies and foreclosure rates are now at pre-crash levels as the benefits of higher home prices, improving economic fundamentals and years of cautious underwriting are being felt across the country. 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.

Of the 10 largest U.S. metro areas, the foreclosure inventory was highest in the New York area, at 3.3%. The Miami metro area’s foreclosure inventory totaled 2.9%, and the Las Vegas area had the third-highest total at 1.6%. The lowest totals were posted in the San Francisco (0.1%) area and in Denver (0.3%).

Florida and Tennessee posted year-over-year declines of more than 30% in foreclosure inventory. Florida’s foreclosure inventory has fallen nearly 37% in the past 12 months, and Tennessee’s has dropped by nearly 34%.

According to CoreLogic, the current foreclosure rate of 1.1% is the same as the November 2007 rate, and the foreclosure inventory has declined every month for the past 53 months. Before the collapse in the housing market in 2007, the average number of foreclosures completed in a month was 21,000.