CoreLogic Reports 37,000 Completed Foreclosures in April 2016

June 14, 2016, Irvine, Calif., – CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today released its April 2016 National Foreclosure Report which shows the foreclosure inventory declined by 23.4 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 15.8 percent compared with April 2015. The number of completed foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 43,000 in April 2015 to 37,000 in April 2016, representing a decrease of 68.9 percent from the peak of 117,813 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 6.2 million completed foreclosures nationally, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 8.3 million homes lost to foreclosure.

As of April 2016, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 406,000, or 1.1 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 530,000 homes, or 1.4 percent, in April 2015. The April 2016 foreclosure inventory rate is the lowest for any month since September 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 21.6 percent from April 2015 to April 2016, with 1.1 million mortgages, or 3 percent, in this category. The April 2016 serious delinquency rate is the lowest in more than eight years, since October 2007.

"The recovery in home prices and improved labor market have contributed to the drop in seriously delinquent rates," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Over the 12 months through April, the CoreLogic Home Price Index for the U.S. rose 6.2 percent and the labor market gained 2.6 million jobs. We also found that the seriously delinquent rate fell by about three-quarters of a percentage point."

"The number of homeowners who have negative equity has fallen by two-thirds since its 2010 peak, and the number of borrowers in foreclosure proceedings has also continued to drop," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Despite this progress, about four million homeowners remained underwater at the end of the first quarter, and these borrowers are more vulnerable to foreclosure proceedings if they should fall delinquent."

Additional April 2016 highlights:

• On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures increased by 0.3 percent to 37,000 in April 2016 from the 36,000 reported for March 2016.* 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.
• On a month-over-month basis, the foreclosure inventory was down 3 percent compared with March 2016.
• The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in March 2016 were Florida (69,000), Michigan (48,000), Texas (28,000), Georgia (23,000) and California (23,000). These five states accounted for about 41 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.
• Four states and the District of Columbia had the lowest number of completed foreclosures: The District of Columbia (128), North Dakota (317), West Virginia (482), Alaska (653) and Montana (695).
• Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory rate: New Jersey (3.7 percent), New York (3.2 percent), Hawaii (2.2 percent), the District of Columbia (2.1 percent) and Florida (2 percent).
• The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate were Alaska (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.3 percent), Utah (0.4 percent), Arizona (0.4 percent) and Colorado (0.4 percent).

*March 2016 data was revised. Revisions are standard, and to ensure accuracy CoreLogic incorporates newly released data to provide updated results.

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 April 2016.

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 (NYSE: CLGX) 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.