RealtyTrac released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for March and the first quarter. The report shows that foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 117,485 U.S. properties in March, a 4 percent increase from February but a 23 percent decrease from March 2013.
The real estate information company found that the monthly increase in foreclosure activity was driven by a 7 percent month-over-month increase in foreclosure starts — the initial public notice starting the foreclosure process — and a 6 percent monthly increase in scheduled foreclosure auctions. Lenders repossessed 28,840 U.S. properties in March, down 5 percent from the previous month and down 34 percent year over year. The number of March repossessions was the lowest level since July 2007 — an 80-month low.
March was the 42nd consecutive month in which U.S. foreclosure activity decreased year over year, helping to drop first quarter foreclosure activity to the lowest level since the second quarter of 2007. A total of 341,670 U.S. properties had a foreclosure notice in the first quarter, down 3 percent from the previous quarter and down 23 percent from the previous year. One in every 385 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing in the first quarter.
Despite the decrease in overall foreclosure activity in the first quarter, 29 states posted annual increases in scheduled foreclosure auctions, including Utah (up 226 percent), Oregon (up 177 percent), Connecticut (up 131 percent), New Jersey (up 79 percent), Delaware (up 49 percent), New York (up 47 percent), Maryland (up 46 percent), Massachusetts (up 37 percent), Nevada (up 21 percent) and Florida (up 21 percent).
Meanwhile foreclosure starts in the first quarter increased from a year ago in 19 states, including New Jersey (up 83 percent), Maryland (up 43 percent), Indiana (up 38 percent), Delaware (up 24 percent), Connecticut (up 13 percent) and California (up 10 percent). The increase in California was the first annual increase since the second quarter of 2012 and the first double-digit percentage increase since the fourth quarter of 2009.
“Now that the foreclosure deluge has dried up, banks are turning their attention back to properties that have been sitting in foreclosure limbo for some time,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “This is most evident in judicial foreclosure states that were more likely to have impediments in the foreclosure process, but there are also signs of this catch-up trend happening in some non-judicial states like California, where an increasing number of judicial foreclosure filings boosted foreclosure starts in the first quarter.
“Banks will also now be able to devote more resources to dealing with the lingering inventory of nearly half a million already-foreclosed homes that still need to be sold,” Blomquist continued. “Our estimates indicate only 10 percent of these bank-owned properties are listed for sale and more than half are still occupied by the former homeowner or tenant.”