Foreclosures across the board are up, especially year-over-year, according to ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data.
Its Q3 2023 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report showed that filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — are up 28 percent from the previous quarter and 34 percent from a year ago.
There was a total of 124,539 US properties with foreclosure. However, Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM, said in prepared remarks that the number of new cases filed by lenders in the third quarter did rise just a small amount from the same period last year and actually dipped a bit quarterly – signs that the upward pattern may be easing.
“But foreclosure starts are nearly back to where they were two years ago when the federal government lifted a pandemic-related moratorium on most foreclosure filings,” Barber said.
“This rise in foreclosures might also be attributed to pending filings finally processing. Even with the national economic upturn and job stability, it’s evident that some homeowners are still grappling with the pandemic’s financial aftermath or encountering new challenges.”
The report also shows the number of US properties with foreclosure filings in September 2023 increased by 11 percent from the previous month and up 18 percent from September 2022.
North Carolina (up 53 percent) topped the list of states that had 1,000 or more foreclosure starts in Q3 2023. Louisiana was next (up 47 percent); followed by Pennsylvania (up 24 percent); Alabama (up 18 percent); and Nevada (up 16 percent).
Houston saw the most foreclosures per housing unit (one in 371) among the 223 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed in the report. It was followed by Atlantic City (one in every 453); Cleveland (one in every 459); Bakersfield, Calif. (one in every 465); and Columbia, S.C. (one in every 503).
It takes the longest, on average, to execute a foreclosure in Louisiana (3,045 days); followed by Hawaii (2,498 days); New York (1,941 days); Nevada (1,690 days); and New Jersey (1,621 days), based on third-quarter filings. States with the shortest average foreclosure timelines for homes were Texas (160 days); Montana (169 days); Wyoming (177 days); Missouri (211 days); and Michigan (213 days).