Nationwide, there was “a return to normal, healthy foreclosure activity in many markets even as banks continued to clean up some of the last vestiges of distress left over from the last housing crisis”, RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said in the report. In addition, 2015 was the second year in row during which the foreclosure rate was below 1% – 0.82% to be exact.
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However, foreclosure starts increased in 16 states during the year, including Oklahoma (up 92%), MA (up 67%), Missouri (up 28%), Virginia (up 23%), Nevada (up 14%) and Arkansas (up 14%). “The increase in bank repossessions that we saw for the year was evidence of this cleanup phase, which largely involves completing foreclosure on highly distressed, low-value properties”.
In New York state, the process averaged 1,010 days.
USA foreclosure starts in December were down 30% from a year agothe sixth consecutive month with an annual decrease in foreclosure startswhile U.S. bank repossessions (REOs) in December increased 65% from a year agothe 10th consecutive month with an annual increase in REOs.
Measured another way, only 1.6 percent of Palm Beach County homes were in foreclosure in 2015, down from a peak of 6.8 percent in 2010. Bank repossessions up in 2015 following four consecutive years downA total of 449,900 US properties were repossessed by lenders in 2015, up 38 percent from 2014 but still 57 percent below the peak of almost 1.1 million bank repossessions (REOs) in 2010.
Foreclosures were down across all of Southern California, he said, with Ventura County showing the smallest decrease over 2014.
“It’s nearly a game now of how low can they go?”
Nationwide, residential foreclosures declined just 3 percent, according to RealtyTrac. That’s good news when it comes to defaults, which represent potentially new foreclosures.
Atlantic City’s foreclosure rate more than quadrupled the national average, which remained relatively steady throughout the year at 3.43, the report said.
The South Florida metro area, which includes Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, had 865 filings in December, down 37 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the RealtyTrac listing firm.
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Homeowners facing foreclosure can now request mediation and loan modifications, which can give them a second chance but also cause unnecessary delays for some foreclosure cases in which the owner ends up losing their home anyway.
