RealtyTrac released its 2015 Year-End U.S. Foreclosure Market Report January 14, finding foreclosures at a nine-year low.
Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and back repossessions, were down 3 percent over 2014 and 62 percent over the peak in 2010. After four years on the decline, bank repossessions increased.
Another positive– homes had been in the foreclosure process in 2015 for a slightly shorter period of time. The length of the process fell one day to 629 over the previous quarter, and was still up by 4 percent over the same time last year.
“In 2015 we saw a return to normal, healthy foreclosure activity in many markets even as banks continued to clean up some of the last vestiges of distress left over from the last housing crisis,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac in a statement.
Six metro areas among the nation’s 20 largest posted increases in foreclosure activity:
- Boston, up 44 percent
- St. Louis, up 38 percent
- Dallas, up 25 percent
- Detroit, up 22 percent
- New York, up 9 percent
- Houston, up less than 1 percent
The metros with the highest foreclosure rates include:
- Atlantic City, New Jersey, at 3.43 percent
- Trenton, New Jersey, at 2.14 percent
- Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida, at 2.03 percent
- Jacksonville, Florida, 2.02 percent
- Miami, Florida, at 1.98 percent
Illinois saw a decrease in foreclosure activity by 8.62 percent annually in 2015, and it was a 55.89 percent decrease from the 2010 peak. The state saw 1.26 percent of housing units under foreclosure in 2015.
Chicago was ranked the no. 14 major metro area out of the top 20 for foreclosure rates.