Foreclosures have seen a slight uptick, but remain well down on last year
Foreclosures have seen a slight uptick, but remain well down on last year.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 148,054 U.S. properties in May, according to RealtyTrac’s May report.
“Foreclosure activity continued to bounce back in some markets where it may have appeared the foreclosure problem had been knocked out by an aggressive combination of foreclosure prevention efforts over the past two years,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
The increase is up 2% from the 75-month low in April, but still down 28% from May 2012, and was caused largely by an 11% month-over-month increase in bank repossessions, although REO activity was still down 29% from a year ago, the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows.
REO activity increased from the previous month in 33 states, including North Carolina up 60%, Oregon up 57% and Wisconsin up 44%.
“While foreclosure activity is less than one-third the level it was at the height of the foreclosure crisis in Reno, the 20-month high in foreclosure starts in May could provide some limited relief to the shortage of inventory as those foreclosure starts translate into short sales, sales at the public foreclosure auction or possibly bank-owned sales over the next year,” said Craig King, COO at Chase International brokerage.
Blomquist points to the emerging housing recovery as strength for these local markets to quickly shake off a few more blows from nagging foreclosures.
