National foreclosure inventory falls 9 percent year-to-date

IRVINE
December 3, 2012 5:51am

With 105,000 completed foreclosures for the 12-month period ending October 31, California leads the nation in the number of foreclosed homes, according to a new report Monday from financial information company CoreLogic Inc. (NYSE: CLGX) of Irvine.

That’s comparatively good news for the state, however. According to the report, just 1.8 percent of homes in the state were in foreclosure in October, down 0.9 percent from a year earlier.

Nationally, according to CoreLogic, there were 58,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in October 2012, down from 70,000 in October 2011 representing a year-over-year decrease of 17 percent.

On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures fell from 77,000 in September 2012 to the current 58,000, representing a decrease of 25 percent. As a basis of comparison, prior to the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month between 2000 and 2006, CoreLogic says. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure, it notes. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 3.9 million completed foreclosures across the country.

Approximately 1.3 million homes, or 3.2 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were in the national foreclosure inventory as of October 2012 compared to 1.5 million, or 3.6 percent, in October 2011.

Month-over-month, the national foreclosure inventory was down 1.3 percent from September 2012 to October 2012. The foreclosure inventory is the share of all mortgaged homes in any stage of the foreclosure process.

"A lower foreclosure inventory is a good indicator of improving housing markets," says Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "The downward trend in foreclosure inventories over the past year is yet another signal that a recovery in housing is gaining traction."

"As a result of completed foreclosures and alternative disposition methods, the foreclosure inventory has declined by 9 percent year-to-date. This is good news for housing markets as we look forward to 2013," adds Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

According to CoreLogic:

• The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in October 2012 were: California (105,000), Florida (95,000), Michigan (68,000), Texas (59,000) and Georgia (54,000). These five states account for 49.0 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.

• The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in October 2012 were: South Dakota (19), District of Columbia (64), Hawaii (452), North Dakota (511) and Maine (643).

• The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Florida (11.1 percent), New Jersey (7.7 percent), New York (5.3 percent), Illinois (5.0 percent) and Nevada (4.8 percent).

• The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Wyoming (0.5 percent), Alaska (0.7 percent), North Dakota (0.7 percent), Nebraska (0.8 percent) and South Dakota (1.0 percent).