The inventory of homes in foreclosure continued to decrease in November 2015, falling to the lowest level since November 2007, a new report from CoreLogic showed.
CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, released its November 2015 National Foreclosure Report on Tuesday.
The report shows that during the month of November foreclosure inventory declined by 21.8% and completed foreclosures declined by 18.8% compared with November 2014.
CoreLogic’s report also showed that the number of completed foreclosures nationwide fell year over year from 41,000 in November 2014 to 33,000 in November 2015.
Additionally, the number of completed foreclosures in November 2015 was down 71.6% from the peak of 117,657 in September 2010, CoreLogic’s report noted.
According to CoreLogic’s report, the foreclosure inventory represents the number of homes at some stage of the foreclosure process and completed foreclosures reflect the total number of homes lost to foreclosure.
CoreLogic’s report noted that as of November 2015, the national foreclosure inventory was approximately 448,000, or 1.2%, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 573,000 homes, or 1.5%, in November 2014.
The November 2015 foreclosure inventory rate marks the lowest for any month since November 2007, CoreLogic’s report showed.
“After peaking at 3.6% in January 2011, the foreclosure rate currently stands at 1.2% – a remarkable improvement," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "While there are still pockets of areas with high foreclosure activity, 30 states have foreclosure rates below the national average which is evidence of the solid improvement."
But it wasn’t just the number of homes in foreclosure that fell to an eight-year low.
CoreLogic also reports that the number of mortgages in serious delinquency, which CoreLogic defines as 90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure or REO, declined by 21.7% from November 2014 to November 2015, to 1.3 million mortgages, or 3.3%, in this category.
According to CoreLogic, the November 2015 serious delinquency rate is the lowest since Dec. 2007.
"Tight post-crash underwriting standards coupled with much improved economic and housing market fundamentals have combined to push new mortgage delinquencies to 15-year-lows," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Although judicial states will likely continue to lag, given current trends, it is reasonable to expect a continued and significant drop in the rate of serious delinquencies and foreclosure starts in 2016."
CoreLogic’s report also showed that:
- On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures decreased by 10.9% to 33,000 in November 2015 from the 38,000 reported in October 2015.
- The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in November 2015 were Florida (83,000), Michigan (51,000), Texas (29,000), California (24,000) and Georgia (24,000). These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.
- Four states and the District of Columbia had the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in November 2015: the District of Columbia (78), North Dakota (225), Wyoming (543), West Virginia (565) and Hawaii (686).
- Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory rate in Novemeber 2015: New Jersey (4.4%), New York (3.5%), Hawaii (2.5%), Florida (2.4%) and the District of Columbia (2.4%).
- The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate in November 2015 were Alaska (0.3%), Minnesota (0.3%), Arizona (0.4%), Colorado (0.4%) and Utah (0.4%).
Click the image below to see the foreclosure inventory rate by state.
(Image courtesy of CoreLogic)
