This Is the City With the Highest Foreclosure Rate in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 13, 8:05AM EDT

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This Is the City With the Highest Foreclosure Rate in America — © SeanPavonePhoto / iStock via Getty Images

Foreclosures are largely a thing of the past. They surged during the Great Recession as the housing bubble exploded. From 2005 through 2008, mortgages that should have not have been granted due to low incomes and lost jobs defaulted at astonishing rates. This triggered a collapse in home prices in a number of markets. However, the housing market in 2021 is extraordinarily healthy. Home prices continue to surge, as they have for a year. Home supply has fallen because of brisk demand. However, not every metropolitan area is free of foreclosure trouble.

The new ATTOM April 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows that one reason foreclosures are relatively low in much of the nation now relies on special circumstances that will end. Rick Sharga, executive vice president at RealtyTrac, an ATTOM Data Solutions company commented: “Foreclosure activity continues to trend near historic lows as we enter the 14th month of the Federal Government’s foreclosure and eviction moratorium.” Foreclosures are defined as “default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions.”

The ATTOM data included metros measured at two size levels. In markets with populations of over 200,000, Macon, Georgia, had the worst rate of one in every 2,334 housing units with a foreclosure filing. Provo, Utah, was second at one in every 3,295 housing units. Pensacola, Florida, was next at one in every 3,492. Cleveland’s figure was one in every 3,550. Finally, Beaumont, Texas, had one in every 3,561 housing units in foreclosure.

Among cities with populations over a million, Cleveland was at the top of the list in April. Las Vegas followed with one in every 4,838 housing units. Then, Riverside, California, had one in every 5,020 housing units in foreclosure; Jacksonville, Florida, had one in every 5,243; and Chicago had one in every 5,324.
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There appears to be no ready pattern among these metro areas. Cleveland is a relatively poor city. Las Vegas has a high unemployment rate because of a COVID-19 triggered drop in tourism. Riverside is a relatively affluent metro area. Chicago, the third-largest city in America after New York City and Los Angeles, is too large and diverse to draw any trends.

What is probable is that forecloses will rise soon. The federal government moratorium will only last so long.

Click here to see which county has the most expensive homes in America.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.