Foreclosure activity dipped to its lowest point since before the foreclosure crisis, according to the September and Q3 2016 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released by ATTOM Data Solutions, the new parent company of RealtyTrac.
The number of properties with new foreclosure filings – default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions – in September decreased 13% from last month and 24% from last year to 82,972. This marks the lowest point since December 2005.
Another recent report shows foreclosure inventory in August declined significantly from last year, hitting its lowest point since the housing boom, according to CoreLogic.
“Foreclosure activity has been on a steady slide downward over the past six years, finally dropping back below pre-crisis levels in September,” said Daren Blomquist, ATTOM Data Solutions senior vice president. “While we’ve know that the national foreclosure problem has been dying a long, slow death for quite some time, the final nail in the coffin of the foreclosure crisis is the year-over-year decrease in the average foreclosure timeline nationwide that we saw in Q3 2016 — the first time that’s happened since we began tracking foreclosure timelines in Q1 2007.”
Properties took an average of 625 days to complete foreclosure in the third quarter, down from 631 days last quarter, and down from 630 days last year. This is the first annual decrease since ATTOM began tracking average foreclosure timelines in the first quarter of 2007.
“The decrease in the average foreclosure timeline indicates that banks have worked through the bulk of the legacy foreclosure backlog in most states — with a few lingering exceptions — and that most of the foreclosures being completed now are relatively recent defaults that are more efficiently progressing through the foreclosure pipeline,” Blomquist said.
Some states have much shorter timelines, such as Virginia with 196 days, New Hampshire with 230 days, Texas with 246 days, Minnesota with 250 days and Mississippi with 253 days.
On the other hand, some states have much longer times to close on foreclosures, including New Jersey with 1,262 days, Hawaii with 1,241 days, New York with 1,070 days, Florida with 1,038 days and Illinois with 942 days.
