38,000 U.S. Foreclosures Completed in July, Tampa Top Market

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According to CoreLogic's July 2015 National Foreclosure Report, U.S.  foreclosure inventory declined by 27.9 percent and completed foreclosures declined by 24.4 percent since July 2014. The number of foreclosures nationwide decreased year over year from 50,000 in July 2014 to 38,000 in July 2015, representing a decrease of 67.9 percent from the peak of 117,225 completed foreclosures in September 2010.

Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.8 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 7.8 million homes lost to foreclosure.

As of July 2015, the national foreclosure inventory included approximately 469,000, or 1.2 percent, of all homes with a mortgage compared with 650,000 homes, or 1.7 percent, in July 2014. The July 2015 foreclosure rate is the lowest since December 2007.

Irvine, Ca based CoreLogic also reports that the number of mortgages in serious delinquency (defined as 90 days or more past due, including those loans in foreclosure or REO) declined by 23 percent from July 2014 to July 2015 with 1.3 million mortgages, or 3.4 percent, falling into this category. This is the lowest serious delinquency rate since December 2007.

"Job market gains and home-price appreciation help to push serious delinquency and foreclosure rates lower. The CoreLogic national HPI showed home prices in July rose 6.9 percent from a year earlier, building equity for homeowners," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Further, 2.4 million jobs were created, pushing the unemployment rate down from 6.2 percent in July 2014 to 5.3 percent this July and supporting family income growth for most owners."

"As we enter the final months of 2015, the housing market continues to gather steam buoyed by improving economic conditions and the release of pent up demand for homeownership," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "The recovery in the housing market is also reflected in declining delinquency and foreclosure rates which, to some degree, reflects the progressive clearing of crisis-era loans and the benefits of tighter underwriting standards over the past six years."

Additional highlights as of July 2015:

• On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures declined by 6.2 percent from the 40,000 reported in June 2015. As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.

• The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in July 2015 were: Florida (98,000), Michigan (47,000), Texas (33,000), California (27,000) and Georgia (27,000). These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.

• Four states and the District of Columbia had the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in July 2015: South Dakota (33), the District of Columbia (124), North Dakota (316), Wyoming (483) and West Virginia (553).

• Four states and the District of Columbia had the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes: New Jersey (4.8 percent), New York (3.7 percent), Florida (2.7 percent), Hawaii (2.5 percent) and the District of Columbia (2.4 percent).

• The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory rate as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Alaska (0.3 percent), Minnesota (0.4 percent), North Dakota (0.4 percent), Utah (0.4 percent) and Nebraska (0.4 percent).