Foreclosure Starts Increase in 44 Percent of U.S. Markets in July 2018

July the Third Consecutive Month with an Annual Increase in 15 Percent of Markets; Atlantic City, Peoria, Fayetteville, North Carolina Post Top Metro Foreclosure Rates

IRVINE, Calif. – Aug. 21, 2018 — ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation's premier property database, today released its July 2018 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows that foreclosure starts increased from a year ago in 96 of the 219 metropolitan statistical areas (44 percent) analyzed in the report.

A total of 30,187 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process for the first time in July, up 1 percent from the previous month and up less than 1 percent from a year ago — the first year-over-year increase in foreclosure starts nationwide following 36 consecutive months of year-over-year decreases.

Twenty-one states posted a year-over-year increase in foreclosure starts in July, including Florida (up 35 percent); California (up 3 percent); Texas (up 7 percent); Illinois (up 7 percent); and Ohio (up 2 percent).

Metro areas posting year-over-year increases in foreclosure starts in July included Los Angeles, California (up 20 percent); Houston, Texas (up 76 percent); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (up 10 percent); Miami, Florida (up 29 percent); and San Francisco, California (up 10 percent).

"The increase in foreclosure starts is not just a one-month anomaly in many local markets given that July represented the third consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in 33 metro areas, including Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Detroit, San Diego and Austin," said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president with ATTOM Data Solutions. "Gradually loosening lending standards over the past few years have introduced a modicum of risk back into the housing market, and that additional risk is resulting in rising foreclosure starts in a diverse set of markets across the country. Most susceptible to rising foreclosure starts are affordability-challenged markets where homebuyers are more financially stretched and markets with some type of trigger event such as a natural disaster or large-scale layoffs."

Atlantic City, Peoria, Fayetteville, North Carolina post top metro foreclosure rates

Nationwide, one in every 2,086 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing in July. States with the highest foreclosure rates in July were New Jersey (one in every 723 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Delaware (one in every 841); Maryland (one in every 1,038); Florida (one in every 1,180); and Illinois (one in every 1,277).

Among the 219 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 200,000 people, those with the highest foreclosure rates in July were Atlantic City, New Jersey (one in every 448 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Peoria, Illinois (one in every 622); Fayetteville, North Carolina (one in every 683); Trenton, New Jersey (one in every 703); and Philadelphia (one in every 851).

About ATTOM Data Solutions

ATTOM Data Solutions provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes and enhances the data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 9TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, APIs, market trends, marketing lists, match & append and more.