Foreclosures Reach Their Lowest Level Since Tracking Began

According to The Title Report, foreclosure filings in 2019 reached their lowest level since tracking began in 2005, with the highest potential for distressed properties cropping up in the major metro areas of Baton Rouge LA., Atlanta GA, Salt Lake City UT, Orlando FL and Portland, OR.

The states of Nevada, New York, New Jersey, California and Arizona saw the most significant declines in foreclosures last year.

As wages rise and unemployment drops, interest rates remain low and the stock market continually achieves new highs, all of the typical circumstances that drive most mortgage delinquencies simply don’t exist.

From my own point of view, that of a long-time Arizona Realtor, locating foreclosures to satisfy the extreme bargain hunters among my clients, is nearly impossible. And even when acquiring a distressed property is a viable option, the foreclosure industry is not what it used to be. Lenders are no longer desperate to unload a deluge of repossessed homes. The upshot here is that the sales price of a foreclosed property today falls at or very close to fair market value. The non-rental faction of Real Estate investors are instead focusing on rehabs and flip-worthy resale inventory.

Homeowner equity is growing as home prices increase. That, along with the components mentioned earlier; wages, the job market, low mortgage interest rates and the economy in general, bodes well for the immediate future of property repossessions.

CoreLogic regularly tracks mortgage delinquencies and the outlook for 2020 is good. As imminent mortgage delinquency is the forecaster of foreclosure, CoreLogic’s indicators incline toward the favorable.

CoreLogic: Delinquencies Keep Shrinking

By RISMedia Staff

In October, delinquencies dropped to 3.7 percent of mortgages nationwide, according to CoreLogic’s latest Loan Performance Insights Report.

CoreLogic defines delinquency as 30 days or more past-due. In October, 1.8 percent of loans were 30-59 days past-due; 0.6 percent were 60-90 days past-due; and 1.3 percent were 90 or more days past-due. The foreclosure inventory rate was 0.4 percent.

“Home-price growth builds homeowner equity and reduces the likelihood of a loan entering foreclosure,” explains Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “The national CoreLogic Home Price Index recorded a 3.3 percent annual rise in values through October 2019, and price growth was the primary driver of the $5,300 average gain in equity reported in the latest CoreLogic Home Equity Report.”

“National foreclosure and serious delinquency rates have remained fixed at record lows for at least the last six months,” says Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “However, as markets can be much more volatile at the metro level, both late-stage delinquencies and foreclosures have continued to increase at this level in the Midwest and Southern regions of the country.”