Foreclosures Decline in January 2013

Foreclosures Decline in January 2013
According to CoreLogic’s National Foreclosure Report, 61,000 foreclosures were completed nationwide in January. This is down from 75,000 completed foreclosures in January 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 17.8 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures rose from 56,000 in December 2012 to the January level of 61,000, an increase of 10.5 percent. As a basis of comparison, prior to the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month between 2000 and 2006. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.2 million completed foreclosures across the country.

Approximately 1.2 million homes were in some stage of foreclosure in the U.S., known as the foreclosure inventory, as of January 2013 compared with 1.5 million in January 2012, a 21 percent year-over-year decrease. This was the 15th consecutive month with a year-over-year decline. Month over month, the foreclosure inventory was down 3.3 percent from December 2012 to January 2013. The foreclosure inventory as of January 2013 represented 2.9 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared to 3.5 percent in January 2012.