Despite harsh weather conditions and a shorter month, more foreclosures were completed last month than in January. But year-over-year performance, as well as other foreclosure metrics, improved to the lowest levels in years.
Residential loan servicers initiated 51,842 foreclosures in February, fewer than the 57,259 foreclosures started in January. The latest activity brought the year-to-date total to 109,101.
Foreclosure starts have slowed significantly compared to a year earlier, when 71,488 new foreclosures were initiated by mortgage servicers.
RealtyTrac, which reported the data, said that the last time there were this few foreclosure starts was in December 2005.
Among the 10 states with the most foreclosure starts, New York saw a 9 percent increase from January to 3,039, while New Jersey starts plunged 28 percent to 3,328.
Last month, 112,498 U.S. properties were hit with some type of foreclosure filing — notices of default and lis pendens; notices of trustee’s sale and notices of foreclosure sale; and real-estate-owned filings. That was the fewest filings since December 2006 — when RealtyTrac reported 109,652 foreclosures.
Filings were down 10 percent from a month earlier and 27 percent from a year earlier.
“Cold weather and a short month certainly contributed to a seasonal drop in foreclosure activity in February, but the reality is that new activity is no longer the biggest threat to the housing market when it comes to foreclosures,” RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist explained in the report.
A 26 percent decline in total filings from January was recorded in Illinois — the biggest drop among the 10 states with the most filings — putting last month’s total at 6,526. None of the top-10 states saw an increase.
The U.S. foreclosure rate worked out to one filing for each 1,170 housing units in February, better than the prior month’s one-in-1,058 rate and vastly improved from one-in-849 in February 2013.
The nation’s worst foreclosure rate was in Florida, where a filing was made on each 372 homes last month. Tampa had the highest rate of the 20 most populated metropolitan areas, while Miami was No. 2.
Next was Maryland, which had a filing on each 557 housing units. Baltimore had the third-highest rate of large metropolitan areas.
After that was one-in-633 in Nevada, one-in-739 in New Jersey and one-in-811 in Illinois.
North Dakota’s one-in-106,489 foreclosure rate was the best in the country.
Moving on to the ultimate metric, completed foreclosures, the U.S. total inched up to 30,307 in February from the previous month’s 30,226. But REOÂ filings tumbled from 45,038 in the same month last year.
From Jan. 1 through Feb. 28 of this year, repossessions totaled 60,533.
Among the 10 states with the most completed foreclosures, California had the biggest month-over-month decline:Â 22 percent. REOÂ filings in Florida, on the other hand, shot up 25 percent.
