Housing

Foreclosure Rates Plunge in Michigan, Washington, Minnesota, Colorado

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: October 11, 2016 10:10 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:33 am

Foreclosure inventory continues to plunge across the nation, with the foreclosure inventory rate at 0.9% in August, down 29.6% compared to last year. However, the drop was much greater in four states that fell over 35% for the month: Michigan (37.2%), Washington (38.6%), Minnesota (36.4%) and Colorado (37.4%)

According to the CoreLogic August 2016 National Foreclosure Report:

[T]he foreclosure inventory declined by 29.6 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 42.4 percent compared with August 2015. The number of completed foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 64,000 in August 2015 to 37,000 in August 2016, representing a decrease of 69 percent from the peak of 118,221 in September 2010.

The foreclosure inventory represents the number of homes at some stage of the foreclosure process and completed foreclosures reflect the total number of homes lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 6.4 million completed foreclosures nationally, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 8.5 million homes lost to foreclosure.

As of August 2016, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 351,000, or 0.9 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 499,000 homes, or 1.3 percent, in August 2015. The August 2016 foreclosure inventory rate is the lowest it’s been since July 2007.

Also:

On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures increased by 7.7 percent to 37,000 in August 2016 from the 34,000 reported for July 2016.* 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 August 2016 foreclosure inventory was down 3.2 percent compared with July 2016.

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the 12 months ending in August 2016 were Florida (55,000), Texas (27,000), Ohio (23,000), California (22,000) and Georgia (21,000).These five states account for about 35 percent of completed foreclosures nationally.
Four states and the District of Columbia had the lowest number of completed foreclosures in the 12 months ending in August 2016: the District of Columbia (212), North Dakota (341), West Virginia (469), Alaska (624) and Montana (717).

Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory rate in August 2016: New Jersey (3.2 percent), New York (2.9 percent), Maine (1.8 percent), Hawaii (1.8 percent) and the District of Columbia (1.8 percent).

The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate in August 2016 were Colorado (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.3 percent), Arizona (0.3 percent), Utah (0.3 percent) and Michigan (0.3 percent).

Denver had the largest drop in foreclosures for the period, down 42.3%, followed by Miami at 36.9%.