Although there was little change in foreclosure activity on a month-over-year basis, foreclosures have worsened compared to a year earlier.
Foreclosures were initiated on 51,414 residential loans during May. Foreclosure starts slipped from the previous month, when mortgage servicers began the process on 51,773 loans.
But new foreclosure filings have worsened compared to the same month last year, when the foreclosure process was started on 49,240 home loans.
The activity was reported Thursday by RealtyTrac.
New filings were highest in California, where the foreclosure process was initiated on 5,090
properties. Tennessee had 4,590 new filings, followed by 4,125 in New Jersey, 3,929 in Florida and 3,402 in New York.
In all,
126,868 U.S. properties were hit with some sort of filing — including notices of default and lis pendens, notices of trustee’s sale and notices of foreclosure sale, and real-estate-owned filings — last month.
Total filings moved up from 125,875 in April and soared from
109,824 in May 2014.
Florida fared worst in this category, with filings made on 22,008 properties in May 2015. California came next with 12,024 filings, then New Jersey’s 7,378, Illinois’ 6,913 and Ohio’s 6,716.
Just
nine North Dakota properties had a filing — fewer than any other state.
One foreclosure filing was made on each 1,041 U.S. properties in May 2015, not a whole lot different than the one-in-1049 rate the previous month.
But there was deterioration compared to the same month in 2014, when the rate was one-in-1,199.
Florida had the worst foreclosure rate in the nation: one filing for each 409 housing units. In New Jersey, one filing was made on each 483 properties. After that was one-in-485 in Tennessee, one-in-531 in Maryland and one-in-590 in Nevada.
The best rate in the nation — one filing for each
36,079 properties — was in North Dakota.
The ultimate foreclosure metric — completed foreclosures — worked out to 44,892 for the country as a whole last month.
Real-estate-owned filings slipped from 45,168 in April but leapt from the 28,373 REO filings during May 2014. It was the third month in a row for a year-over-year increase.
So far this year,
mortgage servicers have completed 172,141 foreclosures.
Repossessions were highest in
Florida, where 10,038 foreclosures were completed. California had 3,341 REO filings, then 3,008 in Ohio, 2,706 in Texas and 2,199 in Georgia.
Just five homes were repossessed in North Dakota, the fewest of the 50 states.
