Us foreclosures continue to fall

Photo credit: Fifth World Art

New figures from CoreLogic reveal that the national foreclosure inventory fell by 35 per cent in June 2014 to approximately 648,000 homes, or 1.7 percent of all homes with a mortgage. This is the 32nd month in a row of year-on-year declines, including 17 consecutive drops of more than 20 per cent, as the US housing market continues to recovery from the financial crisis.

At its peak, the seriously delinquent inventory increased 88 per cent year over year in April 2008, but in June 2014, it fell 23.3 per cent.

Pre-foreclosure filings also decreased by 12.5 per cent from 83,500 to 73,100 per month nationally in June 2014 from a year ago. As of June, pre-foreclosure filings had fallen 68 percent from their peak of 229,000 in March 2009. By comparison, monthly filings averaged 21,000 from 2003-2005 prior to the financial crisis. 

The five states with the largest year-over-year drop in the foreclosure inventory were: Arizona (-53.6 per cent) and Utah (-51.5 per cent). All 50 states and the District of Columbia posted declines in the foreclosure inventory from a year ago, with 45 states showing decreases of more than 25 percent.

CoreLogic particularly highlights the improvements made among the top three states. Florida was hit the hardest, peaking in June 2011 at 12.5 percent and falling to a rate of 5.0 percent in June 2014. However, the improvements in New York and New Jersey have been much smaller. Over the 12 months ending in June 2014, the foreclosure rate in New York and New Jersey fell by only 0.6 per cent, compared to a 4.2 per cent decline in Florida.