U.S. FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY IN APRIL 2022 DECLINES SLIGHTLY

Foreclosure Starts Remain Unchanged from Last Month; While Completed Foreclosures Decrease 36 Percent from Last Month

IRVINE, Calif., May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its April 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 30,674 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — down 8 percent from a month ago but up 160 percent from a year ago.

Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio had the highest foreclosure rates
Nationwide one in every 4,580 housing units had a foreclosure filing in April 2022. States with the highest foreclosure rates were Illinois (one in every 2,241 housing units with a foreclosure filing); New Jersey (one in every 2,292 housing units); Ohio (one in every 2,585 housing units); Indiana (one in every 2,660 housing units); and Nevada (one in every 3,043 housing units).

Among the 223 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in April 2022 were Greeley, CO (one in every 1,237 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Cleveland, OH (one in every 1,326 housing units); Elkhart, IN (one in every 1,531 housing units); Fayetteville, NC (one in every 1,639 housing units); and Chicago, IL (one in every 1,851 housing units).

Those metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million, with the worst foreclosure rates in April 2022, aside from Cleveland, OH and Chicago, IL were: Philadelphia, PA (one in every 2,196 housing units); Indianapolis, IN (one in every 2,268 housing units); and Riverside, CA (one in every 2,366 housing units).

Foreclosure starts remain unchanged from last month
Lenders started the foreclosure process on 22,286 U.S. properties in April 2022, just down slightly from 22,360 last month but up 251 percent from a year ago.

Counter to the national trend, states that had at least 100 foreclosure starts in April 2022 and saw the greatest monthly increases in foreclosure starts included: Massachusetts (up 133 percent); Colorado (up 95 percent); Minnesota (up 59 percent); Indiana (up 39 percent); and Washington (up 24 percent).

In looking more granular, those counties that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in April 2022 included: Cook County, IL (759 foreclosure starts); Los Angeles County, CA (652 foreclosure starts); Harris County, TX (429 foreclosure starts); Maricopa County, AZ ( 331 foreclosure starts); and Philadelphia, PA (277 foreclosure starts).

"The extreme difference between foreclosure starts and foreclosure completions in April might be the beginning of a trend," said Rick Sharga, executive Vice President of market intelligence for ATTOM. "Record levels of homeowner equity should provide financially distressed homeowners the opportunity to sell their homes prior to a foreclosure auction, meaning we should continue to see fewer foreclosure completions. While it may take several months to determine if this is actually what's happening, it seems like a real possibility in today's low supply/high demand housing market."

Foreclosure completion numbers decrease 36 percent from last month
Lenders repossessed 2,830 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in April 2022, down 36 percent from last month but up 82 percent from last year.

Those states that had the greatest number of REOs in April 2022, included: Illinois (417 REOs); Pennsylvania (266 REOs); Michigan (187 REOs); Ohio (150 REOs); and California (148 REOs).

Those major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with a population greater than 1 million that saw the greatest number of REOs in April 2022 included: Chicago, IL (347 REOs); Philadelphia, PA (149 REOs); New York, NY (128 REOs); Detroit, MI (64 REOs); and St. Louis, MO (53 REOs).

Report methodology
The ATTOM U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the ATTOM Data Warehouse during the month and quarter. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the quarter may have been recorded in the previous quarter. Data is collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population. ATTOM's report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). For the annual, midyear and quarterly reports, if more than one type of foreclosure document is received for a property during the timeframe, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The annual, midyear, quarterly and monthly reports all check if the same type of document was filed against a property previously. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state where the property is located, the report does not count the property in the current year, quarter or month.

About ATTOM
ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 20TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

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SOURCE ATTOM