Foreclosure Activity at 11-Year Low

Last month saw a total of 82,972 properties with foreclosure filings, according to new statistics released by ATTOM Data Solutions. September’s data represented a 13 percent drop from August, a 24 percent plummet from one year earlier, and the lowest level of foreclosure activity since December 2005.

States with the highest foreclosure rates in September were Delaware (one in every 680 housing units with a foreclosure filing); New Jersey (one in every 691); Nevada (one in every 897); Illinois (one in every 946); and Florida (one in every 950). Among 216 metro areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in September were Atlantic City, N.J. (one in every 375 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Rockford, Ill. (one in every 597); Columbia, S.C. (one in every 629); Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. (one in every 710); and Jacksonville, Fla. (one in every 722).

“Foreclosure activity has been on a steady slide downward over the past six years, finally dropping back below pre-crisis levels in September,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “While we’ve know that the national foreclosure problem has been dying a long, slow death for quite some time, the final nail in the coffin of the foreclosure crisis is the year-over-year decrease in the average foreclosure timeline nationwide that we saw in the third quarter of 2016—the first time that’s happened since we began tracking foreclosure timelines in the first quarter of 2007. The decrease in the average foreclosure timeline indicates that banks have worked through the bulk of the legacy foreclosure backlog in most states—with a few lingering exceptions—and that most of the foreclosures being completed now are relatively recent defaults that are more efficiently progressing through the foreclosure pipeline.”