According to research from Attom Data Solutions, foreclosure activity in United States dropped 14 percent in 2016 compare to 2015. Foreclosure filings were reported on 933,045 U.S. properties in 2016, reaching the lowest level since 2006, when there were 717,522 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings. Foreclosures are when any action is taken on a property due to default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions. Florida was ranked No. 4 in the nation with 1.18 percent of all the housing units in the state with foreclosure filings. The state had 106, 901 total properties with foreclosure filings, down 33.09 percent from 2015, and down 77.97 percent from the peak in 2010.
“The national foreclosure rate stayed within an historically normal range for the third consecutive year in 2016, even as banks continued to clear out legacy foreclosures from the last housing bubble, particularly in the final quarter of the year,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at Attom Data Solutions, the new parent company of RealtyTrac, in a prepared statement. “Foreclosures completed in the fourth quarter had been in the foreclosure process 803 days on average, a substantial jump from the third quarter and indicating that banks pushed through significant numbers of legacy foreclosures during the quarter. Despite that push, we still show that more than half of all active foreclosures nationwide are on loans originated between 2004 and 2008, with a much higher share of legacy foreclosures in some markets.”
