Completed Foreclosures down by 20% According to CoreLogic

CoreLogic’s June National Foreclosure Report found 55,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in June 2013 – down from 68,000 in June 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 20 percent.

On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures increased 2.5 percent from the 53,000 reported in May. As a basis of comparison, prior to the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.

Completed foreclosures indicate homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.5 million completed foreclosures in the U.S.

Florida, however, continues to rank as the No. 1 state for foreclosures. In the one-year period ending in June, Florida had 107,000 completed foreclosures. It was followed by California (72,000), Michigan (63,000), Texas (48,000) and Georgia (44,000). The top-five states accounted for almost half of all completed U.S. foreclosures.

As of June 2013, approximately 1 million homes were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared to 1.4 million in June 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 28 percent. Banks do not yet own homes in the foreclosure inventory.

Month over month, the foreclosure inventory was down 2.9 percent from May 2013 to June 2013. The foreclosure inventory as of June 2013 represented 2.5 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared to 3.4 percent in June 2012.

Florida also has had the highest percentage of homes – 8.6 percent – in its foreclosure inventory, which is measured as a percentage of all homes that have a mortgage. Other states in the top five for foreclosure inventory include New Jersey (6 percent), New York (4.8 percent), Connecticut (4.2 percent) and Maine (4.1 percent).

“So far this year, distressed inventories have fallen dramatically – down 14.4 percent – and serious delinquencies are down 15.9 percent,” says Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “In the first six months of 2013, the stock of seriously delinquent mortgages has dropped by 412,000.”

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