Foreclosure filings nationwide rose 3% in January from the month prior, a sign that improving delinquency rates may have a huge lag effect.
“We continue to see signs on a local and regional level that the frozen-up foreclosure process is beginning to thaw,” said Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac.
Although the analytics firm released numbers showing a worsening foreclosure picture in January, compared to a year ago filings are down 19%.
In January servicers and banks filed 210,941 foreclosure-related tickets: default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.
RealtyTrac said that for the first time since the robo-signing scandal broke in October 2010, foreclosure activity increased annually in Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Indiana. In December, California, Arizona and Massachusetts experienced higher year-over-year foreclosure activity too.
Moore anticipates foreclosure filings to continue to increase over the next few months in the wake of the $25 billion robo-signing settlement agreed to by the nation's five largest servicers, the states, and the Department of Justice.
“The settlement sets forth clear guidelines for lenders and servicers to follow when foreclosing, which should allow them to push through some of the delayed foreclosures from last year,” Moore added. “Other roadblocks to foreclosure are still in place at the state level, however, including legislation altering the foreclosure process and lawsuits against lenders. We expect to see somewhat uneven trends in local and regional foreclosure numbers going forward as lenders work through these additional legislative and legal roadblocks.”
During January, the states with the highest foreclosure rates continued to be Nevada, California and Arizona.
With one in every 198 housing units filing for foreclosure, Nevada led the nation for the 61st consecutive month. A total of 5,931 properties had some sort of foreclosure filing in January.
California foreclosure activity dropped to a 50-month low in January, but still had the second highest foreclosure rate with one in every 265 housing units filing for foreclosure. There was a 14% increase in foreclosure activity in Arizona, helping the state post the third highest foreclosure rate in which one in every 325 housing units was foreclosed upon.
Lenders repossessed 66,542 properties in January, 8% more than the prior month and 15% lower from the same time period a year ago.
