More good news for the U.S. housing market rebound: national foreclosure rates continued a downward trend in April. Completed foreclosures, delinquency rates and homes facing foreclosures all softened at national, state and local levels.
Compared to April 2015, when there were 43,000 completed foreclosures across the U.S., CoreLogic’s foreclosure report reveals 37,000 homes faced completed foreclosures last month — a 15.8 percent year-over-year decline.
While completed foreclosures rose minimally by 0.3 percent compared to March, experts say this is the nature of the spring selling market, when banks increase foreclosure activity to take advantage of demand.
What’s more, the national serious delinquency rate is at 3 percent, the lowest level since October 2007. CoreLogic says factors including a 6.2 percent rise in home prices and 2.6 million labor market jobs added to the national economy in 2016 have assisted the decline of delinquencies.
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New York City, Miami face high foreclosure inventory
The New York-Jersey City-White Plains metro reported a 23.5 percent drop in foreclosure inventory, now reaching 3.1 percent of mortgaged homes. Nonetheless, the New York City metro had the highest inventory (3.1 percent) and completed foreclosures, at 7,108 homes. New York and New Jersey are both judicial foreclosure states.
The Miami metro showed a steep 32.7 percent drop in foreclosure inventory to reach 2.7 percent of homes. Florida is also a judicial foreclosure state. Miami had the largest number of completed foreclosures between last April and this April, at 66,071 homes — 2 percent of mortgaged homes in Florida.
In Houston, foreclosure inventory rose minimally at 1.3 percent, but still only affects 0.6 percent of homes in the metro. Texas is a non-judicial foreclosure state, and the foreclosure inventory encompasses just 0.4 percent of all homes across the state.
Chicago’s foreclosure inventory fell 29.8 percent over the last year, affecting 1.4 percent of homes. Illinois is a judicial foreclosure state, with inventory reaching 1.3 percent of mortgaged homes across the state.
Washington D.C. had a 21.5 percent drop in foreclosure inventory to reach less than 1 percent of all homes. The nation’s capital is considered a non-judicial foreclosure state.
Los Angeles and San Francisco showed seriously low foreclosure inventory rates at 0.5 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively. Foreclosure inventory dropped 24.5 percent in L.A since last year and 37.6 percent in San Francisco. California is a non-judicial foreclosure state.
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Further improvements in national foreclosure rates
While serious delinquencies and completed foreclosure mark the final stages of dispossession, homes in any stage of foreclosure also lessened.
Last April, 530,000 homes were in some sort of foreclosure, compared to 406,000 this April — a drop of 23.4 percent to mark the 54th consecutive month with a year-over-year decline.
Total foreclosure inventory represents 1.1 percent of U.S. homes with a mortgage, compared to 1.4 percent in April 2015.
With good news of national foreclosure rates dipping comes a fair warning: While negative equity fell by two-thirds from its 2010 peak and homeowners in the foreclosure process dropped once again, CoreLogic says many borrowers are still at risk.
“Despite this progress, about 4 million homeowners remained underwater at the end of the first quarter, and these borrowers are more vulnerable to foreclosure proceedings if they should fall delinquent,” President and CEO of CoreLogic Anand Nallathambi said.
