IRVINE, CA—A rising market for single-family residential means a falling one for foreclosed properties. In separate reports, ATTOM Data Solutions and CoreLogic cite monthly and annual declines across a number of metrics related to foreclosure activity, ranging from filings to inventory.

ATTOM said Thursday that November saw a total of 86,561 US properties with foreclosure filings in November, down 18% from the previous month and down 17% from a year ago. The year-over-year decrease represented the 14th consecutive month in which this occurred, while the monthly decrease was the largest in six years.

Thirty-states posted Y-O-Y decreases in overall foreclosure activity, led by Florida and Michigan with declines of 32% and 245, respectively. Twenty-nine states recorded Y-O-Y decreases in foreclosure starts during November, led by North Carolina (down 54%) and Louisiana (down 45%).

Earlier this week, CoreLogic, also headquartered in Irvine, CA, issued its foreclosure report for October, which found that the foreclosure inventory declined by 31.5% and completed foreclosures declined by 24.9% from the year-ago period. 2015. The number of completed foreclosures nationwide decreased Y-O-Y from 40,000 in October 2015 to 30,000 in October of this year, representing a decrease of 74.7% from the peak of 118,287 in September '10.

As of this past October, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 328,000, or 0.8%, of all homes with a mortgage, compared with 479,000 homes, or 1.2%, in the year-ago period. CoreLogic also reports that the number of mortgages in serious delinquency dropped by 24.8% on an annual basis, with one million mortgages, or 2.5%, in serious delinquency, the lowest level since August 2007.

“Housing and labor markets improved over the past year, setting the stage for further declines in foreclosure rates across much of the nation,” says Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Home values posted an annual gain of 5.8% through September in the CoreLogic Home Price Index, and payroll employment rose 2.4 million for the year through October.”

In foreclosures as in everything else, real estate is still a local market, and the firm's chief economist, Frank Nothaft, notes that “loan performance varies by the health of the local economy and housing market. Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming, three states with energy-related job loss, experienced a rise in serious delinquency rates while all other states had a decline. Although there were large declines in foreclosure rates in New York and New Jersey, both states experienced the highest serious delinquency rates in the nation, reflecting lagging home values in most neighborhoods and an unemployment rate above the national average.”

Instant Insights /

Residential Foreclosures Continue Decline

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