RealtyTrac Releases January Foreclosure Filing Data
January may have been the beginning of a new year, but some things never change. America remains in the throes of a foreclosure epidemic for the fourth straight year.
There was a foreclosure filing of some type on 261,333 U.S. properties in January, but while the numbers were still staggering, there were some encouraging signs. Total foreclosure filings are now well below their peak levels and overall foreclosure activity was down 17 percent from January of 2010, even though it was up 1 percent over the December numbers.
The information comes from RealtyTrac's January U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, a monthly compilation of data from the Irvine California firm which tracks documents filed in all three stages of foreclosure:
- Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS). This is the first legal notification from a lender that the borrower on a mortgage loan has defaulted under the terms of their mortgage and the lender intends to foreclose unless the loan is brought current.
- Auction - Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS): if the borrower does not catch up on their payments the lender will file a notice of sale (the lender intends to sell the property). This notice is published in local paper and contains information pertaining to the date, time and subject property address.
- Real Estate Owned or REO properties : "REO" stands for "real estate owned" and typically refers to the inventory of real estate that banks and mortgage companies have foreclosed on and subsequently purchased through the foreclosure auction if there was no offer higher than the minimum bid.
The 261,000+ filings spread across these categories represent one for every 497 housing units.
Default notices, NOD or LIS were received for a total of 75,198 properties, down one percent since December and 27 percent from one year earlier. This was the fourth straight month where filings in this category declined and the lowest monthly total since July 2007.
Foreclosure auctions were scheduled on 108,002 properties, the lowest monthly total since February 2009 and a decrease of 4 percent from December and 13 percent from January 2010.
Perhaps because of the delay caused by the moratorium on foreclosures that had been imposed by many servicers in the fall, the number of homes that were foreclosed and taken into bank inventory in January increased by 12 percent over December to a total of 78,133 properties, but continuing the pattern of substantial year-over-year decreases, were 11 percent lower than in January 2010.
While we viewed the numbers as a positive sign, RealtyTrac sees it in a different light. According to James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer, "We've now seen three straight months with fewer than 300,000 properties receiving foreclosure filings, following 20 straight months where the total exceeded 300,000. "Unfortunately this is less a sign of a robust housing recovery and more a sign that lenders have become bogged down in reviewing procedures, resubmitting paperwork and formulating legal arguments related to accusations of improper foreclosure processing."
For the 49th straight month Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, driven by bank repossessions which increased 16 percent from December. The numbers of default notices and scheduled auctions decreased but one in every 93 housing units in the state received a foreclosure filing in January, five times the national average. Foreclosure activity was up 16 percent in Arizona, again driven by bank repossessions which increased 54 percent from December. One in every 175 housing units in Arizona received a filing in January. California also saw a substantial increase in REO activity, up 32 percent. One in every 200 houses was the subject of a foreclosure filing. The two remaining states in the top five were Idaho and Utah with one in every 241 and one in every 265 housing units receiving a filing respectively.