IRVINE, CA—It appears that the foreclosure crisis that began amid the Great Recession has sputtered to a halt. ATTOM Data Solutions said Thursday that foreclosure filings in September were down 24% from a year ago and 13% from the previous month. The September tally of 82,972 properties in default or scheduled for bank repossession or auction was the lowest since December 2005.

“Foreclosure activity has been on a steady slide downward over the past six years, finally dropping back below pre-crisis levels in September,” says Daren Blomquist, SVP at ATTOM Data Solutions. “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” as seen in the third quarter—“the first time that's happened since we began tracking foreclosure timelines in Q1 2007.”

Properties foreclosed in Q3 of this year 2016 took an average of 625 days to complete foreclosure. That's down from 631 days in the previous quarter and down from 630 days in the year-ago period.

“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,” Blomquist says. “Most of the foreclosures being completed now are relatively recent defaults that are more efficiently progressing through the foreclosure pipeline.”

There were a total of 293,190 US properties with foreclosure filings in Q3, up 4% from Q2 but down 10% from a year ago. It was the fourth consecutive quarter where foreclosure activity has decreased on a year-over-year basis.

Although some states are running counter to the national trend, ATTOM says that on a national basis, both foreclosure starts and repossessions for September were down sharply from a year ago. The month's total of 34,685 foreclosure starts was down 20% from September 2015 to reach the lowest level since May of '05, while repossessions were off 32% Y-O-Y.

Properties foreclosed in Q3 of this year 2016 took an average of 625 days to complete foreclosure. That's down from 631 days in the previous quarter and down from 630 days in the year-ago period.

Instant Insights /

Foreclosures Sink to Pre-Recession Low

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