October Foreclosure Inventories Highest New York, New Jersey, Hawaii

In the month of October, 30,000 U.S. home foreclosures were completed, down 3.6% month over month and down 24.9% from a total of 40,000 in October 2015, according to CoreLogic. The research firm notes that the current foreclosure inventory totals 0.8% of all homes with a mortgage in the United States, down 0.4 points compared with October of last year.

The number of U.S. homes currently in some stage of foreclosure totals approximately 328,000, compared with 479,000 in October 2015. That represents a decline in the national foreclosure inventory of 31.5% compared with October 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 (2.8%), New York (2.7%), Hawaii (1.7%), Maine (1.7%) and D.C. (1.6%). The five states with the lowest inventories of foreclosed properties are Arizona (0.3%), Colorado (0.3%), Michigan (0.3%), Minnesota (0.3%) and Utah (0.3%).

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the past 12 months were Florida (51,000), Michigan (29,000), Texas (26,000), Ohio (23,000) and Georgia (20,000). The five states with the fewest foreclosures in the prior 12 months through October were District of Columbia (212), North Dakota (278), West Virginia (407), Alaska (622) and Montana (660).

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CoreLogic CEO Anand Nallathambi said:

Housing and labor markets improved over the past year, setting the stage for further declines in default rates across much of the nation. Home values posted an annual 5.8 percent rise through September in the CoreLogic Home Price Index, and payroll employment rose 2.4 million for the year through October.

Of the 10 largest U.S. metro areas, the foreclosure inventory was highest in the New York area, at 2.5%. The Miami metro area’s foreclosure inventory totaled 2.1%, with the Las Vegas metro and Chicago at 1.2%. The lowest totals were posted in the San Francisco (0.1%) area and in Denver (0.2%).

A total of 21 states posted year-over-year declines of more than 30% in foreclosure inventory for the month of October. Florida’s foreclosure inventory has fallen 41.4% in the past 12 months and Washington’s has dropped by 40.3%.

According to CoreLogic, the current foreclosure rate of 0.8% is the same as the June 2007 rate, and the foreclosure inventory has declined every month for the past 60 months. Before the collapse in the housing market in 2007, the average number of foreclosures completed in a month was 21,000.

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