CoreLogic Reports 32,000 Completed Foreclosures in December 2015

February 09, 2016, Irvine, California — CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today released its December 2015 National Foreclosure Report which shows the foreclosure inventory declined by 23.8 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 22.6 percent compared with December 2014. The number of completed foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 41,000 in December 2014 to 32,000 in December 2015. The number of completed foreclosures in December 2015 was down 72.8 percent from the peak of 117,722 in September 2010.

The foreclosure inventory represents the number of homes at some stage of the foreclosure process and completed foreclosures reflect the total number of homes lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 6.1 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been about 8 million homes lost to foreclosure.

As of December 2015, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 433,000, or 1.1 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 568,000 homes, or 1.5 percent, in December 2014. The December 2015 foreclosure inventory rate is the lowest for any month since November 2007.

CoreLogic also reports that the number of mortgages in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 23.3 percent from December 2014 to December 2015, with 1.2 million mortgages, or 3.2 percent, in this category. The December 2015 serious delinquency rate is the lowest in eight years, since November 2007.

“Reflecting on the full-year foreclosure results for 2015, we can see that completed foreclosures are down more than 20 percent for the year, which is the lowest level since 2006, before the crisis,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Maryland, which can be described as a suburb of the solid D.C. market, led the way with a 59-percent decline in foreclosures in 2015.”

“The supply of distressed inventory continues to shrink rapidly. While this is positive for the housing market overall, it also drives a decline in the inventory of affordable for-sale homes,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The lack of housing stock, particularly affordable inventory, is a growing issue and will limit a full housing recovery in the short to medium term.”

Additional December 2015 highlights:

• On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures declined by 5.6 percent to 32,000 in December 2015 from the 34,000 reported in November 2015.* As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.
• The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in December 2015 were Florida (79,000), Michigan (50,000), Texas (30,000), Ohio (24,000) and Georgia (24,000). These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.
• Four states and the District of Columbia had the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in December 2015: the District of Columbia (81), North Dakota (220), Wyoming (541), West Virginia (560) and Alaska (700).
• Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory rate in December 2015: New Jersey (4.2 percent), New York (3.5 percent), Hawaii (2.4 percent), the District of Columbia (2.3 percent) and Florida (2.3 percent).
• The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate in December 2015 were Alaska (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.3 percent), Colorado (0.4 percent), Arizona (0.4 percent) and Utah (0.4 percent).

*November 2015 data was revised. Revisions are standard, and to ensure accuracy CoreLogic incorporates newly released data to provide updated results.

To download a copy of the National Foreclosure Report, please visit:

CoreLogic Foreclosure Report December 2015

For ongoing housing trends and data, visit the CoreLogic Insights Blog: http://www.corelogic.com/blog.

Methodology

The data in this report represents foreclosure activity reported through December 2015.

This report separates state data into judicial versus non-judicial foreclosure state categories. In judicial foreclosure states, lenders must provide evidence to the courts of delinquency in order to move a borrower into foreclosure. In non-judicial foreclosure states, lenders can issue notices of default directly to the borrower without court intervention. This is an important distinction since judicial states, as a rule, have longer foreclosure timelines, thus affecting foreclosure statistics.

A completed foreclosure occurs when a property is auctioned and results in the purchase of the home at auction by either a third party, such as an investor, or by the lender. If the home is purchased by the lender, it is moved into the lender’s real estate-owned (REO) inventory. In “foreclosure by advertisement” states, a redemption period begins after the auction and runs for a statutory period, e.g., six months. During that period, the borrower may regain the foreclosed home by paying all amounts due as calculated under the statute. For purposes of this Foreclosure Report, because so few homes are actually redeemed following an auction, it is assumed that the foreclosure process ends in “foreclosure by advertisement” states at the completion of the auction.

The foreclosure inventory represents the number and share of mortgaged homes that have been placed into the process of foreclosure by the mortgage servicer. Mortgage servicers start the foreclosure process when the mortgage reaches a specific level of serious delinquency as dictated by the investor for the mortgage loan. Once a foreclosure is “started,” and absent the borrower paying all amounts necessary to halt the foreclosure, the home remains in foreclosure until the completed foreclosure results in the sale to a third party at auction or the home enters the lender’s REO inventory. The data in this report accounts for only first liens against a property and does not include secondary liens. The foreclosure inventory is measured only against homes that have an outstanding mortgage. Generally, homes with no mortgage liens are not subject to foreclosure and are, therefore, excluded from the analysis. Approximately one-third of homes nationally are owned outright and do not have a mortgage. CoreLogic has approximately 85 percent coverage of U.S. foreclosure data.

About CoreLogic

CoreLogic is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider. The company’s combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com.