Foreclosure Activity Reaches Lowest Level Since Onset of Recession
The Great Recession has been marked with an unfortunate degree of foreclosure activity. Since the beginning of the financial crisis, the country saw a total of roughly five million foreclosures brought to completion as people struggled with employment and fell short in their mortgage loan payments. However, as of last April, the country finally reached an important milestone: foreclosure rates, which have been steadily dropping for a while now, have fallen to pre-recession levels.
In April, the total of properties that were either foreclosed or in some state of the foreclosure process was at roughly 46,000 nationally. This represents a drop of 0.4 percent from the previous month, and 18 percent from April of 2013. Foreclosure inventory represented 1.8 percent of all homes, which is down from the 2.7 percent of a year ago.
Every individual state has been reporting a double-digit drop in foreclosure activity, with the exception of New York and the District of Columbia. The states with the most total completed foreclosures over the past twelve months have been Florida, Michigan, Texas, California, and Georgia, accounting for roughly half of the nation’s foreclosures. The states with the highest percentage of foreclosure inventory among all mortgaged homes were New Jersey, Florida, New York, Hawaii, and Maine.
According to the chief economist of CoreLogic, the foreclosure pipeline could be cleared in as little as fourteen months.
