The foreclosure inventory across the nation continues to improve, but when broken down between judicial and non-judicial states, there is a vast divide in improvement, according to the latest CoreLogic May National Foreclosure Report.
As a whole for the month of May, there were 47,000 completed foreclosures nationally, a drop from 52,000 in 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 9.4%.
But despite this steady decline, judicial states continue to struggle behind non-judicial states.
"Significant gains have been made in the last year to reduce the foreclosure stock," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
"Yet, these improvements are occurring disproportionately in non-judicial states. The foreclosure inventory in judicial states is averaging 2.1%, which is more than twice the 0.9% average that is occurring in non-judicial states," Fleming added.
The top non-judicial states, Michigan, Texas and California, recorded a .7%, .7% and .6% foreclosure inventory, with 44,402, 38,649 and 33,940 completed foreclosures in the last 12 months, respectively.
Meanwhile, the top judicial states, Florida, Ohio and Illinois, posted a 5.2%, 1.7% and 2.4% foreclosure inventory, with 122,059, 28,609 and 21, 558 completed foreclosures in the last 12 months, respectively.
As of May 2014, there were approximately 660,000 homes in the nation in some stage of foreclosures, compared to 1 million in May 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 37%.
In addition, the foreclosure inventory as of May 2014 represented 1.7% of all homes with a mortgage, compared to 2.6% in May 2013.
The foreclosure inventory was down 4.8% from April 2014, marking 31 months of consecutive year-over-year declines.
"The pace of completed foreclosures slowed in May compared to last month but I expect this to be a temporary respite," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "There is still much more hard work to do to clear the backlog of foreclosed properties. Although difficult, we need to continue to aggressively clear distressed homes to ensure the return of a healthy housing market."
