Foreclosures Drop to 10-Year Low, New Jersey Bucks Trend

The housing market has improved substantially since the Great Recession by virtually every measure. More proof of progress came with Realtytrac’s 2016 foreclosure numbers. The figures were a 10-year low. Several states did not match the national trend as their situations remained difficult. New Jersey was first among them.

Realtytrac’s Year-End 2016 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows foreclosure filings, including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions. According to the report, those filings:

… were reported on 933,045 U.S. properties in 2016, down 14 percent from 2015 to the lowest level since 2006, when there were 717,522 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings.

The report also shows that 0.70 percent of all U.S. housing units had at least one foreclosure filing in 2016, the lowest annual foreclosure rate nationwide since 2006, when 0.58 percent of housing units had at least one foreclosure filing.

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New Jersey and two of its large cities did poorly:

States with the highest foreclosure rates in 2016 were New Jersey (1.86 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Delaware (1.51 percent); Maryland (1.37 percent); Florida (1.18 percent); and Illinois (1.10 percent).

Other states posting foreclosure rates in the top 10 highest in 2016 were Nevada (1.09 percent); South Carolina (0.92 percent); Connecticut (0.91 percent); Ohio (0.89 percent); and New Mexico (0.78 percent). …

Among 216 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rate in 2016 were Atlantic City, New Jersey (3.39 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Trenton, New Jersey (2.16 percent); Rockford, Illinois (1.54 percent); Philadelphia (1.53 percent); and Lakeland-Winter Haven, Florida (1.46 percent).

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