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US foreclosure activity drops to 12-year low; Lake County 2017 rate drops below 2006
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A new report shows that foreclosure across the United States – as well as in Lake County – has dropped to the lowest levels in 12 years.
The Year-End 2017 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report was produced by ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation’s largest multi-sourced property database.
The report is a count of unique properties with a foreclosure filing during the year based on publicly recorded and published foreclosure filings collected in more than 2,500 counties nationwide.
Based on the report foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 676,535 U.S. properties in 2017, down 27 percent from 2016 and down 76 percent from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010 to the lowest level since 2005.
Those 676,535 properties with foreclosure filings in 2017 represented 0.51 percent of all U.S. housing units, down from 0.70 percent in 2016 and down from a peak of 2.23 percent in 2010 to the lowest level since 2005.
The report showed that the states with the highest foreclosure rates in 2017 were New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois , Connecticut, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, Nevada and New Mexico.
It also included data for December 2017, when there were 64,651 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings, up 1 percent from the previous month but still down 25 percent from a year ago. The company said December was the 27th consecutive month with a year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity.
In Lake County, where there are a reported 35,626 housing units, foreclosures in 2017 took place on 150 properties, well below the 265 reported in 2006, based on data provided by the company to Lake County News.
Foreclosure activity peaked in Lake County in 2010, as the recession continued to impact the area. That year, the report showed that 1,771 foreclosures took place.
The chart above shows Lake County’s foreclosure activity for the years of the report.
“Thanks to a housing boom driven primarily by a scarcity of supply, which has helped to limit home purchases to the most highly qualified – and low-risk – borrowers, the U.S. housing market has the luxury of playing a version of foreclosure limbo in which it searches for how low foreclosures can go,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions.
Among the reports other key findings were the following:
– Lenders started the foreclosure process on 383,701 U.S. properties in 2017, down 20 percent from 2016 and down 82 percent from a peak of 2,139,005 in 2009 to a new all-time low going back as far as foreclosure start data is available – 2006.
– A total of 318,165 U.S. properties were scheduled for public foreclosure auction (the same as a foreclosure start in some states) in 2017, down 27 percent from 2016 and down from a peak of 1,600,593 in 2010 to a new all-time low going back as far as foreclosure auction data is available – 2006.
– Lenders repossessed 291,579 properties through foreclosure (REO) in 2017, down 23 percent from 2016 and down 72 percent from a peak of 1,050,500 in 2010 to the lowest level since 2006 – an 11-year low.
Nationwide, 50 percent of all loans actively in foreclosure as of the end of 2017 were originated between 2004 and 2008 – down from 55 percent a year ago, according to the report.
The report said the states with the highest number of legacy foreclosures on loans originated between 2004 and 2008 were New York (25,886), New Jersey (20,172), Florida (19,494), California (9,847) and Illinois (8,732).