A total of 20,587 U.S. properties had foreclosure filings in October, a 5% increase from September and a 76% jump from a year earlier, according to ATTOM.
ATTOM, a comprehensive foreclosure data analytics company, issued its October 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which accounts for filings that include default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions.
"As expected, now that the moratorium has been over for three months, foreclosure activity continues to increase," said Rick Sharga, executive vice president at RealtyTrac, an ATTOM company. "But it's increasing at a slower rate, and it appears that most of the activity is primarily on vacant and abandoned properties, or loans that were in foreclosure prior to the pandemic."
Nationwide, one in every 6,675 housing units had a foreclosure filing in October. States with the highest foreclosure rates were Illinois (one in every 1,923 housing units); Florida (one in every 3,180 housing units); New Jersey (one in every 3,438 housing units); Nevada (one in every 3,837 housing units), and Ohio (one in every 4,386 housing units).
Among the 220 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in October 2021 were St. Louis (one in every 1,138 housing units); Trenton, N.J. (one in every 1,293 housing units); Miami (one in every 2,233 housing units); Chicago (one in every 2,284 housing units); and Cleveland (one in every 2,285 housing units).
Lenders started the foreclosure process on 10,759 U.S. properties in October, up 5% from last month and up 115% from a year ago.
States that had at least 100 foreclosure starts in October and saw the greatest monthly increase in foreclosure starts included: Pennsylvania (up 107%); North Carolina (up 104%); New Jersey (up 61%); Connecticut (up 56%); and Massachusetts (up 39%).
"Most foreclosure activity for the next few months is likely to be foreclosure starts," Sharga said, "since virtually nothing entered the foreclosure process during the past year. The ratio of foreclosure starts to foreclosure completions will normalize over time as we get back to normal levels of activity."
Lenders repossessed 3,027 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in October, up 13% from last month and up 17% from last year.
States that saw the greatest number of REOs in October 2021, included: Illinois (1,075 REOs); California (178 REOs); Pennsylvania (175 REOs); Maryland (169 REOs), and Florida (148 REOs).
The ATTOM U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the ATTOM Data Warehouse during the month and quarter. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the quarter may have been recorded in the previous quarter. Data is collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide, accounting for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population.
