Done Deals: Q3 Foreclosure Starts at Seven-Year Low; REOs Up From Previous Quarter; Baltimore, Las Vegas, Raleigh, Hartford, DC Among Metros Bucking Downward Trend

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Q3 Foreclosure Starts at Seven-Year Low; REOs Up From Previous Quarter; Baltimore, Las Vegas, Raleigh, Hartford, DC Among Metros Bucking Downward Trend

IRVINE, CA– Oct. 10, 2013 — RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com), the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, today released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for September and the third quarter of 2013, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 131,232 U.S. properties in September, a 2 percent increase from the previous month but a 27 percent decrease from a year ago.

September was the 36th consecutive month with an annual decrease in U.S. foreclosure activity, a downward trend that started in October 2010 when lenders and servicers were accused of improperly signing off on foreclosure documents with a practice dubbed robo-signing.

September numbers helped drop third quarter foreclosure activity to the lowest quarterly level since the second quarter of 2007.

There were a total of 376,931 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in the third quarter of 2013, down 7 percent from the previous quarter and down 29 percent from the third quarter of 2012 — the biggest annual decrease since the second quarter of 2011.