Home Foreclosure Rates Increase ... Again

Location: New York
Author: RiskCenter Staff
Date: Monday, June 16, 2008
 

U.S. home foreclosures jumped in May to 261,255, a 48 percent increase from May 2007, according to RealtyTrac’s latest U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which measures default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Last month’s total is up seven percent from April.

One in every 483 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in May, according to the report, the highest monthly rate since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

“May was the third straight month where we’ve seen a month-to-month increase in foreclosure activity and the 29th straight month where we’ve seen a year-over-year increase,” says James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac. “Bank repossessions continued to surge in May — posting a double-digit percentage increase from the previous month and more than twice the number reported in May 2007 — which pushed the total inventory of bank-owned REOs in our database to more than 700,000.”

The nationwide rate of increase for default notices and foreclosure auction notices actually slowed in May, with default notices up just one percent from April and auction notices down three percent.

Nevada, California and Arizona reported the highest foreclosure rates. In Nevada, which posted the highest state foreclosure rate for the 17th consecutive month, one in every 118 households – a total of 9,009 Nevada properties - received a foreclosure filing in May. That’s an increase of nearly 24 percent from April and 72 percent from May 2007.

California foreclosure activity in May increased 11 percent from the previous month and 81 percent from May 2007, helping the state continue to register the nation’s second highest state rate. One in every 183 California households received a foreclosure filing during the month, a rate that was 2.6 times the national average. Arizona’s May foreclosure rate — one in every 201 households received a foreclosure filing during the month — ranked third highest among the states for the second month in a row. Arizona foreclosure activity increased nearly 12 percent from the previous month and almost 119 percent from May 2007.

RealtyTrac publishes a national database of foreclosure and bank-owned properties, with more than 1.5 million properties from more than 2,200 counties nationwide.

Source: http://www.creditandcollectionsworld.com/

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