California, Florida Cities Still Hammered by Foreclosures

Foreclosure rates rose during the first half of 2012 in many of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas when compared to the second half of 2011.  RealtyTrac said this morning that 125 of the nation's largest 212 metropolitan areas (those with a population over 200,000 persons) saw increased foreclosure activity during the period.  Despite these increases, more than half of the areas still had fewer foreclosure filings than one year earlier.

The greatest increases in the first half of the year came in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, up 47 percent, Philadelphia (30 percent), Chicago (28 percent), New York City (26 percent) and Baltimore (21 percent).  At the other extreme, Seattle saw a 24 percent drop in foreclosure activity with San Francisco (21 percent), and Detroit (17 percent) also showing improvement.

Seven of the top ten metropolitan areas in terms of the foreclosure rate were located in California with Stockton posting the highest rate with 2.66 percent or one of every 38 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing during the six month period, more than three times the national average.  Stockton was followed by Modesto (2.61 percent), Riverside-San Bernardino (2.59 percent), Vallejo-Fairfield (2.56 percent) and Merced (2.15 percent.)  The Riverside area also had the highest rate among the 20 largest metropolitan areas followed by Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, and Chicago. 

"Increasing foreclosure starts in many local markets helped push total foreclosure activity higher in the first half of this year compared to the second half of 2011," said Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac. "Those foreclosure starts are welcome news for prospective buyers and real estate brokers in many local markets where a shortage of aggressively priced inventory has been holding up sales activity. Markets with increasing foreclosure starts will likely see more distressed inventory for sale in the form of short sales and bank-owned properties in the second half of the year."