New foreclosure filings moved up on a month-over-month basis, as did total filings. A Texas town led the deterioration. But activity was down across the board from a year earlier.
Residential loan servicers initiated the foreclosure process on 49,624 U.S. properties during July, more than the 47,243 foreclosure starts in the previous month.
Beginning on Jan. 1 and through July 31, mortgage servicers have started the foreclosure process on 365,531 properties.
The statistics were released Thursday by RealtyTrac.
In the same month last year, there were 60,601 foreclosures started.
“July was the 46th consecutive month where U.S. foreclosure activity was down on a year-over-year basis,” RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist noted in the report.
With 6,210 new filings, California had more than any other state.
Texas followed with 4,528. The Lone Star state was impacted by Houston, which had by a 116 percent jump in scheduled foreclosure auctions — the first public notice starting the foreclosure process in Texas.
New York’s 3,796 was next, then Florida’s 3,709 and Georgia’s 2,479.
Including notices of default, scheduled auctions and repossessions, 109,434 properties faced a foreclosure filing last month, Total filings worsened from 107,194 in June but retreated from 130,888 in July 2013.
Total foreclosure filings were highest in Florida, where 19,166 properties faced some sort of filing. No. 2 California had 13,241. After that were 7,088 in Illinois, 6,109 in Ohio and 5,470 in Texas.
July’s U.S. foreclosure rate was one filing for every 1,203 housing units. The rate deteriorated from a month earlier, when just one filing made on each 1,228 housing units, but was better than one-in-1,001 a year earlier.
The Sunshine State had a filing for each 469 homes, the worst rate in the nation. Maryland was next with a one-in-553 rate, then Nevada’s one-in-639, Illinois’ one-in-747 and Ohio’s one-in-839.
At just one filing for each 159,734 housing units, North Dakota had the most favorable rate in the country.
Moving on to the ultimate foreclosure metric — completed foreclosures — there were 25,937 U.S. repossessions last month.
Real-estate-owned filings slipped from 26,889 in June and were down from 36,964 in July 2013.
During the seven months ended July 31, there were 200,628 completed foreclosures.
REO filings were highest in Florida at 5,847. California had 2,484 completed foreclosures. No. 3 Illinois had 1,930 repossessions, then 1,421 in Georgia and 1,283 in Ohio.
