Foreclosures down 14% in June, lowest in 6.5 years

IRVINE, Calif. – July 11, 2013 – U.S. foreclosure activity decreased 14 percent in June to its lowest level since December 2006, despite a 34 percent jump in judicial foreclosure auctions from a year ago, according to RealtyTrac’s Midyear 2013 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.

The report finds 801,359 properties with foreclosure filings – which includes all default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions – in the first half of 2013. It’s a 19 percent decrease from the previous six months and down 23 percent from the first half of 2012. One in 164 U.S. housing units had at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year.
 
June report
 
• 127,790 U.S. properties had foreclosure filings in June, down 14 percent from the previous month and 35 percent from a year ago. It’s the lowest monthly level since December 2006 – a six and a half year low.
 
• The number of new foreclosure starts in June dropped 21 percent from the previous month and 45 percent from a year earlier, hitting its lowest monthly level since December 2005 – a seven and a half year low.
 
• In Florida, new foreclosure starts dropped 26 percent. Other states with a significant drop in starts include Nevada (down 84 percent), Colorado (62 percent), New Jersey (40 percent) and Illinois (39 percent).
 
• June bank repossessions (REO) decreased 9 percent compared to May and 35 percent from one year earlier. Bank repossessions in June decreased from a year ago in 34 states.
 
• Judicial foreclosure auctions (NFS) were scheduled for 28,296 U.S. properties in June, up less than 1 percent from May but up 34 percent year-to-year. States with substantial annual increases in scheduled judicial foreclosure auctions included New Jersey (up 103 percent), Florida (up 100 percent), Maryland (94 percent), New York (66 percent), and Illinois (65 percent).
 
• Florida, Nevada, Illinois, Ohio and Georgia posted the top five state foreclosure rates for the first half of the year, while five Florida cities posted the top five metro foreclosure rates: Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville,Ocala, and Tampa.
 
Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, says that foreclosures are “no longer a problem nationally,” but they continue to be a problem in states like Florida where the long court process has delayed the progression. However, even states like Florida will soon see an improvement.

“The increases in judicial foreclosure auctions demonstrate that these delayed foreclosure cases are now being moved more quickly through to foreclosure completion,” says Blomquist. “Given the rising home prices in most of these markets, it is an opportune time for lenders to dispose of these distressed properties, either at the foreclosure auction to a third-party buyer, or by repossessing the property at the auction and subsequently selling it as a bank-owned home.

Half-year 2013 Florida report

Florida posted the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate in the first half of 2013: 1.74 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing (one in every 58) during the six-month period – nearly three times the national average.

A total of 155,264 Florida properties had a foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year, the most of any state and up 12 percent from a year ago.

In June, Florida foreclosure starts (LIS) decreased 23 percent from a year ago but scheduled foreclosure auctions increased 100 percent and bank repossessions increased 14 percent during the same time period.
 
Other states with foreclosure rates among the 10 highest in the first six months of 2013 were Arizona (0.81 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing), South Carolina (0.80 percent), Maryland (0.80 percent), Washington (0.78 percent) and Indiana (0.66 percent).

Half-year 2013 Florida cities report

Florida had all five of the top metro areas for foreclosure in the first half of 2013. Miami ranked No. 1 among metropolitan statistical areas with a population of 200,000 or more – 2.35 percent of housing units had a foreclosure filing (one in every 43) during the six-month period – nearly four times the national average.
 
Four other Florida cities joined Miami to round out the top five metro foreclosure rates in the first half of 2013: Orlando at No. 2 (1.94 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing), followed by Jacksonville (1.91 percent), Ocala (1.85 percent) and Tampa (1.74 percent).

Florida cities accounted for a total of 12 of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates.

In Florida, the foreclosure process – from first notice to REO status – took an average of 907 days in the first half of 2013, or roughly two-and-a-half years.

In the U.S., a foreclosure averaged 526 days, though two states have a longer foreclosure process than Florida. In both New York and New Jersey, the average foreclosure takes 1,033 days.

© 2013 Florida Realtors®