Foreclosure Starts Increase 3 Percent from Last Month, While Completed Foreclosures Decrease 1 Percent

IRVINE, Calif., June 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ —ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, today released its May 2024 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 32,621 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — up 3 percent from a month ago but down 7 percent from a year ago. 

“May’s foreclosure activity highlights nuanced shifts in the housing market,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. “While we observed a slight increase in foreclosure starts, the decline in completed foreclosures indicates resilience in certain areas. Monitoring these evolving patterns remains crucial to understanding the full impact on the real estate sector.” 

New Jersey, Illinois and Delaware post highest foreclosure rates
Nationwide one in every 4,320 housing units had a foreclosure filing in May 2024. States with the highest foreclosure rates were New Jersey (one in every 1,939 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Illinois (one in every 2,362 housing units); Delaware (one in every 2,595 housing units); Connecticut (one in every 2,600 housing units); and Florida (one in every 2,638 housing units).

Among the 224 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in May 2024 were Longview, TX (one in every 1,162 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Trenton, NJ (one in every 1,471 housing units); Atlantic City, NJ (one in every 1,569 housing units); Lakeland, FL (one in every 1,584 housing units); and Bakersfield, CA (one in every 1,685 housing units).

Those metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million with the worst foreclosure rates in May 20244 were: Chicago, IL (one in every 2,015 housing units); Philadelphia, PA (one in every 2,143 housing units); Riverside, CA (one in every 2,216 housing units); Jacksonville, FL (one in every 2,267 housing units); and Las Vegas, NV (one in every 2,361 housing units). 

Greatest numbers of foreclosure starts in Florida, Texas and California
Lenders started the foreclosure process on 22,385 U.S. properties in May 2024, up 3 percent from last month but down 4 percent from a year ago.

States that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in May 2024 included: Florida (2,750 foreclosure starts); Texas (2,560 foreclosure starts); California (2,370 foreclosure starts); Illinois (1,427 foreclosure starts); and New Jersey (1,219 foreclosure starts).  

Those major metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in May 2024 included: New York, NY (1,447 foreclosure starts); Chicago, IL (1,272 foreclosure starts); Houston, TX (915 foreclosure starts); Miami, FL (750 foreclosure starts); and Philadelphia, PA (713 foreclosure starts).

Foreclosure completion numbers decrease slightly from last month
Lenders repossessed 2,879 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in May 2024, down 1 percent from last month and down 28 percent from last year. 

States that had the greatest number of REOs in May 2024, included: California (254 REOs); Illinois (254 REOs); Pennsylvania (238 REOs); Ohio (177 REOs); and Texas (167 REOs). 

Those major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with a population greater than 1 million that saw the greatest number of REOs in May 2024 included: Chicago, IL (179 REOs); New York, NY (124 REOs); Baltimore, MD (84 REOs); Pittsburgh, PA (80 REOs); and Washington, DC (69 REOs). 

Report methodology
The ATTOM U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the ATTOM Data Warehouse during the month and quarter. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the quarter may have been recorded in the previous quarter. Data is collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population. ATTOM’s report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). For the annual, midyear and quarterly reports, if more than one type of foreclosure document is received for a property during the timeframe, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The annual, midyear, quarterly and monthly reports all check if the same type of document was filed against a property previously. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state where the property is located, the report does not count the property in the current year, quarter or month.

About ATTOM
ATTOM 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 real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include ATTOM Cloud, bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property navigator and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, making property data more readily accessible and optimized for AI applications– AI–Ready Solutions. 

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SOURCE ATTOM