There were 47,000 completed foreclosures in May, down 9.4% year-over-year, according to CoreLogic. But foreclosures were up 3.8% month-over-month.
Since the financial crisis began in 2008, 5 million properties have been lost to foreclosure.
660,000 homes were in the process of being foreclosed (foreclosure inventory) as of May 2014, down 37% from 1 million a year ago.
Foreclosure inventory was down for the 31st straight month, and accounted for 1.7% of all homes with a mortgage in May, down from 2.6% a year ago.
But it isnt' all good news. The improvements have largely come from non-judicial states. The report finds that foreclosure inventory in judicial states is on average more than twice that of non-judicial states.
"The pace of completed foreclosures slowed in May compared to last month but I expect this to be a temporary respite," Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic said in a press release. "There is still much more hard work to do to clear the backlog of foreclosed properties. Although difficult, we need to continue to aggressively clear distressed homes to ensure the return of a healthy housing market."
Here are some details from the report:
- Arizona, Utah, Nebraska, and Minnesota saw foreclosure inventory decline by over 50%. And every state saw a double digit annualized decline in completed foreclosures.
- "The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: New Jersey (5.8 percent), Florida (5.2 percent), New York (4.3 percent), Hawaii (3.1 percent) and Maine (2.8 percent)."
- Florida had the highest number of completed foreclosures at 122,000, and the District of Columbia had the lowest at 71.
We've previously pointed out that the foreclosure crisis has been moving east to New Jersey and New York.
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