New foreclosure filings increased in volume last month, but completed foreclosures contracted. Florida dominated every foreclosure category.
October saw 58,939 U.S. foreclosures started. The number of starts crept up from a month earlier, rising by nearly 2 percent.
But an improvement was made by mortgage servicers compared to a year earlier, with new filings down 34 percent from the same month last year.
The data from RealtyTrac, which was released Thursday, indicates that more foreclosures were started in Florida than any other state: 8,226.
After that was California’s 6,801, then Texas’ 3,786, Illinois’ 3,772 and New York’s 3,086.
With no foreclosure starts, North Dakota had fewer than any other state.
RealtyTrac reported that 133,919 U.S. properties faced some type of foreclosure filing last month — including notices of default and lis pendens; notices of trustee’s sale and foreclosure sale; and real estate owned.
Total filings worsened from 131,232 in September but were down from 186,455 in October 2012.
“The backlog of delayed judicial foreclosures continues to make its way through the pipeline, with many of these properties now being scheduled for the public auction after starting the foreclosure process last year or earlier this year,” RealtyTrac executive Daren Blomquist said in the report. “Lenders are likely moving these properties more rapidly to the public auction given that there is strong demand from institutional buy-to-rent investors at the auction and that rising home prices mean more of the loan losses can be recouped, either by selling to an investor at the auction or by repossessing the property and reselling as bank owned.”
Florida also dominated this category with 26,962 total filings. No. 2 California had 15,098. Next was 9,757 in Ohio, 9,583 in Illinois and 5,153 in Texas.
North Dakota’s four total filings were the fewest in the country.
A foreclosure filing was made on one out of every 978 U.S. housing units during October. That rate was a slightly worse rate than one-in-998 the previous month but better than one-in-706 during the same month in the previous year.
A filing was made on every 332 Florida homes — the worst rate in the country. Miami and Tampa had the highest foreclosure rates among the 20-biggest metropolitan statistical areas.
Next was Nevada’s one-in-407 rate, then one-in-516 in Maryland, one-in-525 in Ohio and one-in-552 in Illinois. Baltimore and Chicago were among the five-worst MSAs.
The best foreclosure rate in the country was in North Dakota: one-in-78,879.
The ultimate foreclosure metric, repossessions, was 37,715 in the most recent report.
Servicers completed fewer foreclosures than the 38,334 U.S. REO filings in September and 53,478 in October of last year.
From Jan. 1 through Oct. 31, there were 400,888 foreclosures completed.
Florida took the quadruple crown with its 7,130 repossessions in October, trailed by Ohio’s 3,959.
No. 3 California had 3,164 REOÂ filings, then 2,700 in Illinois and 1,691 in Michigan.
The fewest foreclosures were completed in North Dakota, where just four homes were lost to foreclosure.
