By Ian McKendry
WASHINGTON (MNI) – The pace at which foreclosures in the United
States are being completed is starting to level off, however, the rate
at which short-sales are occurring is beginning to fall — which could
lead to an increase in the inventory of foreclosed homes, data analytics
firm CoreLogic said Tuesday.
“While completed foreclosures and real-estate owned sales virtually
offset each other over the past four months, producing static levels of
foreclosure inventory for most of this year, they are beginning to
diverge again,” CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming said in a
statement.
“Over the last two months REO sales declined while completed
foreclosures leveled out. So we could see foreclosure inventory rising
going forward,” Fleming added.
CoreLogic reported that there were 60,000 foreclosures completed in
June, the same as in May, but 20,000 less than in June of 2011.
Since September 2008, there have been about 3.7 million completed
foreclosures, CoreLogic said, adding that about 1.4 million homes or
3.4% of all homes with a mortgage are in the foreclosure inventory.
Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, said he believes
more could be done to expand the alternatives to foreclosure and that
more certainty about what future financial regulation will look like
would help reduce the foreclosure inventory.
Despite his belief that more could be done to reduce the glut of
foreclosed homes, Nallathambi noted that “the decline in the flow of
completed foreclosures to pre-financial crisis levels is more welcome
news pointing to an emerging housing market recovery.”
“The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures
for the 12 months ending in June 2012 were: California (125,000),
Florida (91,000), Michigan (58,000), Texas (56,000) and Georgia
(55,000). These five states account for 48.4 percent of all completed
foreclosures nationally,” CoreLogic said.
** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **
[TOPICS: M$U$$$,M$$AG$,MAUDS$]
