Lenders took possession of fewer U.S. homes in 2012 than a year earlier, as the pace of additional homes entering the path to foreclosure slowed and banks increasingly opted to allow troubled borrowers to sell their homes for less than what they owed on their mortgage.
Banks repossessed 671,251 homes, down about 17% from 2011, according to data out Thursday from foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac.
The trend, along with an annual drop in overall foreclosure activity, suggests U.S. foreclosure woes are easing, at least on a national level.
But half the states saw more foreclosure activity last year and many are expected to continue seeing rises this year, RealtyTrac said.
Foreclosure activity, defined as the number of homes that received at least one foreclosure-related filing, fell 3 % in 2012. That translates to 1.8 million U.S. homes, and is a 36% drop from a peak of 2.9 million homes in 2010, the firm said.
The Backlog Backstory
Florida had the top foreclosure rate last year, with 3.1% of households, or one in 32, receiving a filing. Generally, states such as Florida and New York, where courts play a role in the process, take longer to work through their cases than California, Utah and other nonjudicial states with a streamlined process.
The judicial states have taken longer to work through a backlog that built up in 2011 as the mortgage industry addressed allegations that lenders had processed foreclosures without verifying documents.
As a result, foreclosure activity rose last year in 25 states, most with a judicial foreclosure system, as it fell in 25 others, most being nonjudicial states, RealtyTrac said.
Among states with the biggest increases were New Jersey, Florida and Illinois. Those with the most decline in foreclosure activity included Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
Predictions For 2013
Many states with a judicial foreclosure process, including Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana, should be caught up with their backlog midyear, said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac. While others, such as New York and New Jersey, where foreclosure can take nearly three years, will play catch-up through most of 2013.
Blomquist expects foreclosure activity to decline in nonjudicial states through the first half of the year. But laws passed last year in California, Oregon and Nevada aimed at making it tougher for lenders to foreclose may end up deferring foreclosures until later in the year.
"That could mean that, although we are comfortably past the peak of the foreclosure problem nationally, 2013 is likely to be book-ended by two discrete jumps in foreclosure activity," Blomquist said.
While foreclosure activity fell in 2012, the inventory of homes in a stage of foreclosure or in banks' possession rose 9% to 1.5 million homes, RealtyTrac said. Florida had the biggest share of U.S. foreclosure inventory last year, some 20%.
Blomquist forecasts that 500,000 to 600,000 homes will be repossessed by banks nationally this year, noting that historically about half of homes starting the foreclosure process end up being taken back by lenders. Last year, 1.1 million homes got started on the foreclosure path.
birth control pill recall ground hog day florida primary results black history groundhogs day paula abdul cinnamon challenge
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.