Foreclosures in US Post Decline in October
IRVINE, Calif. -- A total of 48,000 foreclosures were reported throughout the United States in October, down from 68,000 the same month a year ago, CoreLogic reports. Judicial foreclosures completed in Ohio for the year were 26,842; in Pennsylvania it was 14,060.
Month-over-month, completed foreclosures nationwide fell 25.6%, from the 64,000 reported in September, according to a new report from CoreLogic.
Since the housing bubble burst in September 2008, there have been some 4.6 million completed foreclosures across the country. As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.
As of October 2013, some 879,000 homes in the United States were in some stage of foreclosure, compared to 1.3 million in October 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 31%. The foreclosure inventory as of Oct. 31 represented 2.2% of all houses with a mortgage compared to 3.1% in October 2012. The foreclosure inventory was down 2.9%.
Ohio's inventory was 2.2% and Pennsylvania's 2.6%.
“Year over year, the foreclosure inventory, as a percentage of all homes with a mortgage, has declined almost a full percentage point to 2.2%,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, in a prepared statement. “This is good news for the housing and mortgage finance markets, but the rate remains elevated relative to the pre-crisis level of about 0.6%. There are almost 900,000 properties still in foreclosure, but a normal level would be only a quarter of the current stock.”
October highlights:
The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ended Oct. 31 were Florida (115,000), Michigan (50,000), California (46,000), Texas (43,000) and Georgia (39,000). These five states account for almost half of all completed foreclosures in the nation..
The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the same period were the District of Columbia (57), North Dakota (411), Hawaii (491), West Virginia (514) and Wyoming (694).
The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were Florida (7.1%), New Jersey (6.7%), New York (4.9%), Maine (3.8%) and Connecticut (3.7%). The five states with the lowest were Wyoming (0.4%), Alaska (0.6%), Nebraska (0.6%), North Dakota (0.7%) and Colorado (0.7%).
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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