Foreclosures Trend up Again - Filings Up 7%

By: Jann Swanson •

Foreclosure activity increased in all categories in October according to the RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released on Thursday. There were 230,678 foreclosure filings during the month, an increase of 7 percent from September but 31 percent less than activity in October 2010.  While there had been encouraging numbers in September, October was the second out of three months to have a significant increase in filings.

RealtyTrac, an Irvine, California firm, issues regular reports on foreclosure activity throughout the United States, tracking foreclosure filings in three categories: 

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

One in every 563 U.S. housing unit received one of these filings during the month but the distribution of these filings was enormous.  In Nevada, which, for the 58th straight month, leads the nation in foreclosure activity, one in every 180 housing units was affected; in Mississippi one in 4,007, Vermont one in 12,570, and in the District of Columbia one in 25,921.

There were increases in each filing category.  Default notices were filed on 77,733 properties in October, up 10 percent from September but down 23 percent year-over-year.  Default notices in states using a judicial form of foreclosure were up 16 percent   to an 11 month high, but were still 31 percent lower than a year earlier.

Foreclosure auctions were scheduled for the first time on 85,321 properties, an 8 percent increase from September but down 38 percent from October 2010.  Scheduled auctions in judicial foreclosure states were also at an 11 month high and were up 22 percent from the previous month.

Lenders repossessed 67,624 properties during the month, a 4 percent monthly increase but a 27 percent annual decrease.  REO activity increased more than 40 percent month-to-month in several states, most notably in Indiana where it was up 73 percent.

"The October foreclosure numbers continue to show strong signs that foreclosure activity is coming out of the rain delay we've been in for the past year as lenders corrected foreclosure paperwork and processing problems," said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. "However, recent state court rulings and new state laws keep changing the rules of the foreclosure game on the fly, creating more uncertainty in the housing market and threatening to prolong the road to a robust real estate recovery."

While Nevada still leads the nation in foreclosure activity there was a 34 percent decrease in activity from the previous month, driven by a 75 percent drop in new default notices.  This was probably the result of a new law that requires lenders to sign an affidavit with key information about the foreclosure and record it in public records.   Other states with a high level of activity were California with one in every 243 housing units receiving a notice, a 17 percent monthly increase; Arizona with one in every 259 units involved and an 18 percent monthly increase, and Florida with a spike in both default notices and scheduled options that bounced it back up to a 12 month high and to fourth place from sixth in September.  One in 268 housing units was the subject of a filing.

Michigan was the fifth most active state, increasing 13 percent from September and reaching a 12-month high.  One in every 282 housing units received a filing.   Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 were Georgia, Illinois, Idaho, Oregon, and Colorado.