CoreLogic Reports 37,000 Completed Foreclosures in October 2015

December 08, 2015, Irvine, Californa — CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today released its October 2015 National Foreclosure Report which shows the foreclosure inventory declined by 21.5 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 27.1 percent compared with October 2014. The number of completed foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 51,000 in October 2014 to 37,000 in October 2015. The number of completed foreclosures in October 2015 was down 68.2 percent from the peak of 117,543 in September 2010.

The foreclosure inventory is the share of all homes at some stage of the foreclosure process, and completed foreclosures reflect the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 6 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been about 8 million homes lost to foreclosure.

As of October 2015, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 463,000, or 1.2 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 589,000 homes, or 1.5 percent, in October 2014. This is lowest rate since November 2007.

CoreLogic also reports that the number of mortgages in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due, including those loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 19.7 percent from October 2014 to October 2015 with 1.3 million mortgages, or 3.4 percent, in this category. This is the lowest serious delinquency rate since December 2007.

"Improved economic conditions and more foreclosure completions have pushed the foreclosure rate lower," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "The national unemployment rate declined to 5.0 percent in October, the lowest since December 2007, and the CoreLogic national Home Price Index has risen 37 percent from its trough."

"We are heading into 2016 with the lowest foreclosure inventory in eight years thanks to escalating home values and progressive improvement in the U.S. economy. A large proportion of the remaining foreclosure inventory is clustered in New York, New Jersey and Florida," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Equally encouraging is the drop in mortgage delinquency rates reflecting the stronger labor market and tighter underwriting since 2009."

Additional October 2015 highlights:

• On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures decreased by 12.3 percent to 37,000 from the 43,000 reported in September 2015.* As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.
• The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in October 2015 were Florida (86,000), Michigan (59,000), Texas (30,000), Georgia (25,000) and California (24,000).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 October 2015: the District of Columbia (76), North Dakota (239), Wyoming (515), West Virginia (571) and Hawaii (700).
• Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory rate in October 2015: New Jersey (4.5 percent), New York (3.6 percent), Hawaii (2.5 percent), Florida (2.5 percent) and the District of Columbia (2.3 percent).
• The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate in October 2015 were Alaska (0.4 percent), Arizona (0.4 percent), Minnesota (0.4 percent), North Dakota (0.4 percent) and Colorado (0.4 percent).

*September 2015 data was revised. Revisions are standard, and to ensure accuracy CoreLogic incorporates newly released data to provide updated results.

To download a copy of the National Foreclosure Report, please visit:

CoreLogic Foreclosure Report October 2015

For ongoing housing trends and data, visit the CoreLogic Insights Blog: http://www.corelogic.com/blog.

Methodology

The data in this report represents foreclosure activity reported through October 2015.

This report separates state data into judicial versus non-judicial foreclosure state categories. In judicial foreclosure states, lenders must provide evidence to the courts of delinquency in order to move a borrower into foreclosure. In non-judicial foreclosure states, lenders can issue notices of default directly to the borrower without court intervention. This is an important distinction since judicial states, as a rule, have longer foreclosure timelines, thus affecting foreclosure statistics.

A completed foreclosure occurs when a property is auctioned and results in the purchase of the home at auction by either a third party, such as an investor, or by the lender. If the home is purchased by the lender, it is moved into the lender's real estate-owned (REO) inventory. In "foreclosure by advertisement" states, a redemption period begins after the auction and runs for a statutory period, e.g., six months. During that period, the borrower may regain the foreclosed home by paying all amounts due as calculated under the statute. For purposes of this Foreclosure Report, because so few homes are actually redeemed following an auction, it is assumed that the foreclosure process ends in "foreclosure by advertisement" states at the completion of the auction.

The foreclosure inventory represents the number and share of mortgaged homes that have been placed into the process of foreclosure by the mortgage servicer. Mortgage servicers start the foreclosure process when the mortgage reaches a specific level of serious delinquency as dictated by the investor for the mortgage loan. Once a foreclosure is "started," and absent the borrower paying all amounts necessary to halt the foreclosure, the home remains in foreclosure until the completed foreclosure results in the sale to a third party at auction or the home enters the lender's REO inventory. The data in this report accounts for only first liens against a property and does not include secondary liens. The foreclosure inventory is measured only against homes that have an outstanding mortgage. Generally, homes with no mortgage liens are not subject to foreclosure and are, therefore, excluded from the analysis. Approximately one-third of homes nationally are owned outright and do not have a mortgage. CoreLogic has approximately 85 percent coverage of U.S. foreclosure data.

Source: CoreLogic

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About CoreLogic

CoreLogic is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider. The company's combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com.