Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Foreclosure filings ticked up slightly in January, posting an 8 percent increase from December. While the January 2014 rate is 18 percent below one year prior, RealtyTrac reports in its latest Foreclosure Market Report that some states are seeing big increases in foreclosure activity.
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“The monthly increase in January foreclosure activity was somewhat expected after a holiday lull, but the sharp annual increases in some states shows that many states are not completely out of the woods when it comes to cleaning up the wreckage of the housing bust,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
“The foreclosure rebound pattern is not only showing up in judicial states like New Jersey, where foreclosure activity reached a 40-month high in January, but also some non-judicial states like California, where foreclosure starts jumped 57 percent from a year ago, following 17 consecutive months of annual decreases.”
Foreclosure starts rose from a year ago in 22 states, with Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania seeing the biggest increases, RealtyTrac reports.
This year, “we’re going to have some states that are still seeing the last surges in foreclosure activity because of continued delays in the process,” Blomquist told CNBC. “Not even an improving economy may help a lot of these.”
The most heavily-populated metros with the highest foreclosure rates in January were Miami, Tampa, Chicago, Baltimore, and Riverside-San Bernardino in Southern California, RealtyTrac reports.
While some states are seeing increases in foreclosure activity, most states saw a dramatic drop in bank repossessions over the past year. Bank repossessions have fallen by 40 percent from year-ago levels, and are at the lowest level since July 2007, RealtyTrac reports.
