A total of 23,204 U.S. properties received foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — in January, up 29% from a month ago and 139% from the same point last year, according to a new report.
ATTOM, parent company to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure and distressed properties, released its January 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report today showing that foreclosures last month were at the highest level since March 2020.
"The increased level of foreclosure activity in January wasn't a surprise," said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of RealtyTrac. "Foreclosures typically slow down during the holidays in November and December and pick back up after the first of the year.”
He said the increases this year “were probably a little more dramatic than usual” due to the foreclosure restrictions placed on mortgage servicers by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau expired at the end of December.
Lenders repossessed 4,784 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in January 2022, up 57% from last month and 235% from the same point last year — the seventh-consecutive month with an annual increase in completed foreclosures.
States that had at least 100 or more REOs and that saw the greatest monthly increase in January 2022 included: Michigan (up 622%); Georgia (up 163%); Texas (up 98%); Tennessee (up 50%), and Alabama (up 44%).
The major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with a population greater than 200,000 that saw the greatest number of REOs included: Detroit (1,013 REOs); Chicago (210 REOs); New York (129 REOs); Miami (113 REOs), and Philadelphia (107 REOs).
"It's very important to keep these numbers in context," Sharga said. "Foreclosure completions are still far below normal levels — less than half as many as in January 2020 before the pandemic was declared, and about 60% lower than the number of foreclosure completions in 2019. We're likely to continue seeing large year-over-year percentage increases for the rest of this year, but it's also likely that foreclosure activity will remain below historically normal levels until the end of 2022."
Nationwide, one in every 5,922 housing units had a foreclosure filing in January 2022. States with the highest foreclosure rates were New Jersey (one in every 2,336 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Illinois (one in every 2,740 housing units); Nevada (one in every 3,119); Michigan (one in every 3,127), and Ohio (one in every 3,251).
Lenders started the foreclosure process on 11,854 U.S. properties in January 2022, up 29% from last month and 126% from a year ago.
States that saw the greatest number of foreclosure starts in January included: Florida (1,238); California (1,226); Texas (1,003); Illinois (757), and Ohio (665).
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, and those counties account for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population.
