Foreclosure Inventory Shrinks by 30 Percent

The national foreclosure inventory plummeted by 30 percent on a year-over-year basis in November 2016, while the level of completed foreclosures fell by 25.9 percent, according to new data from CoreLogic. On a month-over-month basis, the November 2016 foreclosure inventory fell 2.4 percent compared with October 2016 while completed foreclosures declined by 14.1 percent to 26,000 in November 2016 from the 30,000 reported for October 2016.

As of November 2016, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 325,000, or 0.8 percent of all homes with a mortgage. One year earlier, the inventory consisted of 465,000 homes, or 1.2 percent of all mortgaged residences. Furthermore, the number of mortgages in serious delinquency took a 22.1 percent slide from November 2015 to November 2016, with 1 million mortgages, or 2.5 percent, in serious delinquency, the lowest level since August 2007.

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the 12 months ending in November 2016—Florida (48,000), Michigan (31,000), Texas (25,000), Ohio (22,000) and Georgia (20,000)—accounted for 36 percent of completed foreclosures.

"The seven percent appreciation in home prices through November 2016 has added an average of $12,500 in home-equity wealth per homeowner across the U.S. during the last year," said Anand Nallathambi, president and chief executive officer of CoreLogic. "Sustained growth in home prices is clearly bolstering homeowners' spending power and balance sheets and, as a result, spurring a continued drop in defaults."