Foreclosures near eight-year low

Foreclosures fell to their lowest level in nearly eight years in July amid steady job gains and rising home prices. 

CoreLogic, a group that tracks real estate trends, said Tuesday that there were 38,000 completed foreclosures in July. That’s the lowest level since December 2007 and down 6.2 percent from June. 

July’s figure represents a sharp drop of 67.9 percent from the peak of 117,225 completed foreclosures in September 2010.

“As we enter the final months of 2015, the housing market continues to gather steam buoyed by improving economic conditions and the release of pent up demand for homeownership,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. 

“The recovery in the housing market is also reflected in declining delinquency and foreclosure rates which, to some degree, reflects the progressive clearing of crisis-era loans and the benefits of tighter underwriting standards over the past six years,” Nallathambi said. 

As of July, the national foreclosure inventory — the number of homes in any stage of foreclosure — was about 469,000, or 1.2 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared with 650,000 homes, or 1.7 percent, in July 2014. 

That represents a decline in the national foreclosure inventory of 27.9 percent over the past year.

Before the housing crash in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.

Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.8 million completed foreclosures across the country. 

The number of mortgages in serious delinquency — those at least 90 days past due — declined by 23 percent over the past year with 1.3 million mortgages, or 3.4 percent, falling into this category, the lowest serious delinquency rate since December 2007.

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in July were: Florida (98,000), Michigan (47,000), Texas (33,000), California (27,000) and Georgia (27,000). 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 July: South Dakota (33), the District of Columbia (124), North Dakota (316), Wyoming (483) and West Virginia (553).

Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes: New Jersey (4.8 percent), New York (3.7 percent), Florida (2.7 percent), Hawaii (2.5 percent) and the District of Columbia (2.4 percent).

The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were Alaska (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.4 percent), North Dakota (0.4 percent), Utah (0.4 percent) and Nebraska (0.4 percent).