Foreclosure Activity is down in 2011, but it's to processing delays

Reality Trac has stated it's not due to the improvement of the economy or the housing industry.

IRVINE, Calif. – July 14,  2011 – RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com),  the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its  Midyear 2011 Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 1,170,402 U.S.  properties received foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices  and bank  repossessions — in the first six months of 2011, a 25 percent decrease from  the previous six months and a 29 percent decrease from the first half of 2010.  The report also shows that 0.90 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 111) had  at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of the year.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 222,740 U.S. properties  in June, an increase of nearly 4 percent from the previous month, but a  decrease of 29 percent from June 2010. June was the ninth straight month where  foreclosure activity decreased on a year-over-year basis. Default  notices, scheduled  auctions and REOs were all up on a month-over-month basis but down  on a year-over-year basis in June.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 608,235 U.S. properties  during the second quarter, a decrease of nearly 11 percent from the first  quarter and a decrease of 32 percent from the second quarter of 2010. The  second quarter total was the lowest quarterly total since the fourth quarter of  2007. All categories of foreclosure were down both on quarterly basis and  annual basis in the second quarter.

“It would be nice to  report that foreclosure activity is dropping as a result of improvements in the  economy or the housing market,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer  of RealtyTrac. “Unfortunately, with unemployment rates inching back up,  consumer confidence weak and home sales and prices continuing to languish, this  doesn’t appear to be the case.

“Processing and  procedural delays are pushing foreclosures further and further out – we  estimate that as many as 1 million foreclosure actions that should have taken  place in 2011 will now happen in 2012, or perhaps even later. This casts an  ominous shadow over the housing market, where recovery is unlikely to happen  until the current and forthcoming inventory of distressed properties can be  whittled down to a manageable number.”

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