The national foreclosure inventory continues to fall as fewer foreclosures were completed in the month of June, CoreLogic said in a report.
According to the data provider’s national foreclosure report, there were 55,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. during June, down from 68,000 a year ago. This is a 20% decline on an annual basis.
CoreLogic said the improvement is broad-based, as 49 states posted a year-over-year drop in foreclosure rates during the month.
Meanwhile, on a monthly basis, finalized foreclosures increased 2.5% from 53,000
The Irvine, Calif.-based firm said the five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the last 12 months as of June were Florida with 107,000, followed by California with 72,000, Michigan had 63,000, Texas processed 48,000 and Georgia with 44,000. Overall, these five states account for nearly half of all completed foreclosures nationwide.
Even though foreclosures are falling annually, they are still not near the levels that were happening before the housing meltdown started when approximately 21,000 homes were foreclosed upon nationally every month between 2000 and 2006.
Since the financial crisis began in 2008, there have been about 4.5 million properties that have been lost to foreclosure throughout the country, CoreLogic reported.
As of June, approximately 1 million homes were in some stage of foreclosure. At this time last year, the foreclosure inventory stood at 1.4 million properties, which represents a 28% year-over-year decline.
CoreLogic said the foreclosure inventory through the end of June accounted for 2.5% of all homes with a mortgage compared to 3.4% in June 2012.
“So far this year, distressed inventories have fallen dramatically, down 14.4%, and serious delinquencies are down 15.9%,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for
Despite the current positive news in the housing industry, president and CEO of CoreLogic Anand Nallathambi, is still reluctant to say the market has fully recovered.
“The housing market is clearly on the mend, but we expect the ultimate conclusion of the present housing down cycle to be another several years away,” Nallathambi stated.
