There were fewer foreclosure proceedings initiated during the month of April than in any month in the last 10 years, a new report from Black Knight Financial Services shows.
According to Black Knight’s “First Look” at April’s mortgage performance data, there were 58,700 foreclosure starts in April 2016, which is the lowest number of foreclosure starts since April 2006.
Black Knight’s report showed that foreclosure starts decline by 19.37% from March to April. Foreclosure starts were also down 16.62% from April 2015.
Black Knight’s “First Look” report, which is derived from its loan-level database representing the majority of the national mortgage market, also showed that the number of loans in active foreclosure continued to trend down in April, and fell below 600,000 for the first time since 2007.
Black Knight’s report also showed that there were 84,000 new 30-day delinquencies in the month of April, which drove the national delinquency rate up 3.77%, to 4.24% overall. But Black Knight noted that the national delinquency rate is still down more than 10% from April 2015.
Additionally, Black Knight’s report showed that despite interest rates hovering around three-year lows, prepayment speeds, which Black Knight notes are historically a good indicator of refinance activity, fell in April to 1.26%, down 3.24% from March and down 7.25% from April 2015.
