Foreclosure Activity Drops 29 Percent in First Half

Published

July 15, 2011

Credit.com is the only company of its kind to be founded and run by leading credit experts including journalists, authors and consumer advocates. We're committed to helping consumers understand and master the confusing world of credit and improve their financial standing by recommending products and actions that are in their best interest.

Overall, the number of homeowners who received some form of foreclosure actions – default or auction sale notices and repossessions – during the first six months of the year slipped to just more than 1.17 million, down 25 percent from the previous half and 29 percent from the same half in 2010, according to the latest statistics from RealtyTrac. During the time period, one in every 111 homes in the U.S. received some sort of action.

[Resource: Underwater On Your Mortgage? Your Six Options]

“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 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.”

Meanwhile, June saw filings rise nearly 4 percent over the previous month to 222,740, the report said. However, this was also down 29 percent from the number of filings in the previous year.

Many states imposed halts on all foreclosure processing in the wake of the robosigning scandal that came to light late last year, and a large number of lenders did so voluntarily as well.

[Credit Card Roundup: Credit Cards for Rebuilding Credit]

Image by Mike Licht, via Flickr