Foreclosure Rates Enjoying a Downward Trend

Posted by Crystal Olenbush on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 10:07am.

 A recent report released by RealtyTrac Inc, which is a foreclosure seller based in Irvine, California, has found that the national foreclosure rate has gone down by 8% in November when compared to the previous month. On the other hand, the housing market still has a long way to go before it can be considered recovered, as the foreclosure rate is still a disheartening 18% higher than it was just one year ago.

According to the report, which was released in November of 2009, there have been 306,627 foreclosure filings this year. This includes scheduled foreclosure auctions as well as bank repossessions and default notices. More specifically:

•    Default notices were down 8% when compared to the previous month, but up 22% when compared to November of 2008
•    Scheduled foreclosures were down 12% when compared to the previous month, but up 32% when compared to November 2008
•    Bank repossessions were flat when compared to the previous month and went down by 2% when compared to November 2008

When compared to the total number of housing units in the United States, this comes to about one in every 417 units being involved in foreclosure in one way or another.

When looking specifically at the state of Texas, the report found that new foreclosures had declined by 7.72% when comparing this year to last. California, on the other hand, continues to struggle as it posts the highest number of properties in foreclosure of any state. In all, California experienced 73,995 foreclosure filings in the month of November alone, which is up by 22% when compare to November o 2008. On a positive note, these figures are down from the state's peak, which took place in July. During this month, the state had 108,104 filings, for foreclosure rate of 32%.

“November was the fourth straight month that U.S. foreclosure activity has declined after hitting an all-time high for our report in July, and November foreclosure activity was at the lowest level we’ve seen since February,” said James J. Saccacio, who is the CEO of RealtyTrac, in a Biz Journals article. http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/12/07/daily40.html “Loan modifications and other foreclosure prevention efforts, along with the recently extended and expanded home-buyer tax credit, are keeping a lid on the most visible symptoms of the nation’s ailing housing market — foreclosures and home value depreciation.”

1 Response to "Foreclosure Rates Enjoying a Downward Trend"

Barry Lenovitz wrote: I have noticed there are still lots of foreclosures in the suburbs, but not so many closer in to the city. It would make an interesting graph / map.

Posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 10:46pm.

Leave a Comment