Despite a national slowdown last month, foreclosures in California climbed for the second consecutive month and were more than double the next-worst state. California wrestled the worst foreclosure rate away from Georgia. So far this year, more than a million U.S. homes have been hit with a foreclosure filing.
June saw 197,834 U.S. properties that were faced with a foreclosure filing — including default notices, auction sale notices and repossessions.
Activity relented from May, when 205,990 properties had some sort of filing. Foreclosures also retreated from June 2011’s total 222,740 filings.
The data was reported by the online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac, which said that filings have been made on 1,045,801 properties from Jan. 1 through June 30. RealtyTrac said its data is collected from 2,200 U.S. counties accounting for more than 90 percent of the national population.
More foreclosures were filed last month in California than in any other state: 47,490. Activity in the Golden State deteriorated from 42,243 in May and has been higher each month since 39,008 filings were made in April.
Florida retained its No. 2 position with 22,421 filings, easing from 26,412 in May.
After that were 14,938 filings in Illinois, 12,153 foreclosures in Georgia and Ohio’s 10,093.
North Dakota’s three foreclosures were the fewest of any state.
A foreclosure was filed on each 666 U.S. housing units during June, improving from one in 639 a month earlier and the one-in-584 rate during the same month in 2011.
On a year-to-date basis, a foreclosure has been filed on each 126 housing units.
June’s worst rate was in California, where a foreclosure was filed on every 288 properties. RealtyTrac said that it was first month that California captured the worst foreclosure rate since it began issuing its report in January 2005. The Golden State’s rate worsened from one-in-324 the previous month.
Arizona’s rate deteriorated slightly to one-in-303 from one-in-305 in May — when it also had the second-worst rate in the nation.
Nevada followed with a one-in-307 rate. Georgia was No. 4 with a rate of one filing for each 336 properties — abandoning the No. 1 spot it held in May with one filing for every 300 housing units. No. 5 during June was Illinois, where one filing was made on each 355 homes.
Only one foreclosure was filed for every 105,833 properties in North Dakota — the best rate in June.
Foreclosures were completed on 54,272 U.S. properties last month, barely changed from the 54,844 real-estate-owned filings in May. But the number of repossessions fell from 68,851 during the same month in 2011.
During the first-six months of 2012, REO filings totaled 339,871.
California took the triple crown last month, with repossessions in the state landing at 7,472 — exactly the same number as in May.
No. 2 Florida saw completed foreclosures fall to 5,727 from the prior month’s 6,005.
Georgia followed with 4,389 REO filings, then 3,704 in Illinois and 3,669 in Texas.
Just three foreclosures were completed in North Dakota — the fewest of any state.
The average U.S. foreclosure took 378 days to complete in the second quarter, longer than the 370-day process in the first quarter and the lengthiest turnaround since the first-quarter 2007.
But in the state with the worst turnaround time — New York — the timeline shrank to 1,001 days from first quarter’s 1,056 days.
No. 2 New Jersey saw its average time to foreclose fall 3 percent.
