No matter which metric you consider — new foreclosure filings, total foreclosure filings or real-estate-owned filings — activity worsened last month. Florida maintained its standing as the worst state for foreclosures.
U.S mortgage servicers filed the first public notice of a foreclosure on 60,601 home loans during the month of July.
The number of foreclosure starts worsened from June, when 57,286 new notices were filed. However, 38 percent fewer foreclosures were started than in July 2012.
New foreclosure filings totaled 470,092 in the first seven months of 2013, according to RealtyTrac, which reports the data each month.
RealtyTrac said it derives its data from more than 2,200 U.S. counties that account for more than 90 percent of the country’s population.
Florida had more new filings than any other state: 9,180. Activity in the Sunshine state edged up from 9,104 in June.
California was next with 6,299 foreclosure starts, then 3,840 in Georgia, 3,498 in Texas and 3,342 in Illinois.
A total of 130,888 U.S. properties were hit with some type of foreclosure filing last month, 2 percent worse than the 78-month low reached in June but down nearly a third from July 2012.
Total filings include default notices, scheduled auctions and repossessions.
From Jan. 1 through July 31, the total was 932,247 filings, though some of the properties with filings last month might have also had filings during the first half of this year.
“U.S. foreclosure activity in July is 64 percent below the peak of more than 367,000 properties with foreclosure filings in March 2010, but is still 54 percent above the historical average of 85,000 properties with foreclosure filings per month before the housing bubble burst in late 2006,” RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said in the report.
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Again, Florida dominated the scene with its 27,266 properties that had a filing in July. Florida worsened 8 percent from the previous month.
California was also No. 2 in this category with 13,249 properties with some sort of filing. After that was Ohio’s 8,010, Illinois’ 7,755 and Georgia’s 5,478.
North Dakota had just 12 foreclosures, the fewest of any state.
The rate of U.S. foreclosures worked out to one filing for each 1,001 housing units, deteriorating from June’s one-in-1,025 rate. But the foreclosure rate has improved significantly from the same month last year, when one filing was made on each 686 housing units.
With one filing for each 328 homes, Florida also had the worst showing in this category and deteriorated from one-in-355 the prior month. Pushing up the state’s rate was Jacksonville, which had the worst rate — one-in-230 — of any metropolitan statistical area. Eight other Florida cities were among the 10-worst MSAs.
Maryland had a one-in-598 rate, landing it in the No. 2 position. Next was one-in-639 in Ohio, one-in-660 in Connecticut and one-in-678 in New Mexico.
“The top six state foreclosure rates in July were in states with a judicial foreclosure process,” RealtyTrac said.
The most favorable rate– one filing for each 26,293 housing units — could be found in North Dakota.
After all was said and done, mortgage servicers completed 36,964 foreclosures across the county in July.
REOÂ filings climbed from 35,507 during the prior month but have tumbled from 53,654 in the same month during the prior year.
Year-to-date July 31 repossessions totaled 285,502.
Florida took the triple crown of filings with its 7,602 completed foreclosures. In addition to topping all other states, Florida’s REOÂ filings rose from 6,519 a month earlier.
Ohio’s 2,774 repossessions were the second-worst of any state, followed by Michigan’s 2,162, Illinois’ 2,051 and California’s 2,035.
North Dakota’s 11 completed foreclosures were the fewest.
