U.S. Foreclosure Starts Decrease 3.5 Percent in First Six Months of 2024; Average Days to Complete a Foreclosure Up Second Quarter in a Row; June and Q2 2024 Foreclosure Activity Post Annual Declines

IRVINE, Calif., July 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property and real estate data, today released its Midyear 2024 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 177,431 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — in the first six months of 2024. That figure is down 4.4 percent from the same time period a year ago but up 7.8 percent from the same time period two years ago.

Historical First Half US Foreclosure Activity Chart

“In contrast to the first half of 2023, foreclosure activity across the United States experienced a decline in the first half of 2024,” stated Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “In addition, U.S. foreclosure starts also decreased by 3 percent in the first six months of 2024. These shifts could suggest a potential stabilization in the housing market; however, monitoring these evolving patterns remains crucial to understanding the full impact on the real estate sector.”

States that saw the greatest increases in foreclosure activity compared to a year ago in the first half of 2024 included South Dakota (up 93 percent); North Dakota (up 86 percent); Kentucky (up 73 percent); Massachusetts (up 46 percent); and Idaho (up 30 percent).

New Jersey, Illinois, and Florida post highest state foreclosure rates
Nationwide, 0.13 percent of all housing units (one in every 794) had a foreclosure filing in the first half of 2024.

States with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of 2024 were New Jersey (0.21 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Illinois (0.21 percent); Florida (0.20 percent); Nevada (0.19 percent); and South Carolina (0.19 percent).

Other states with first-half foreclosure rates among the 10 highest nationwide were Maryland (0.19 percent); Connecticut (0.19 percent); Delaware (0.18 percent); Ohio (0.18 percent); and Indiana (0.16 percent).

Highest metro foreclosure rates in Lakeland, Columbia, and Atlantic City
Among the 224 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of 2024 were Lakeland, Florida (0.32 percent of housing units with foreclosure filings); Columbia, South Carolina (0.31 percent); Atlantic City, New Jersey (0.28 percent); Cleveland, Ohio (0.27 percent); and Spartanburg, South Carolina (0.27 percent).

Other major metro areas with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 highest in the first half of 2024 were Jacksonville, Florida (0.25 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Bakersfield, California (0.25 percent); Elkhart, Indiana (0.24 percent); Orlando, Florida (0.24 percent); and Chicago, Illinois (0.24 percent).

Foreclosure starts down 3.5 percent from last year
A total of 130,369 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in the first six months of 2024, down 3.5 percent from the first half of last year and down 32 percent from the first half of 2020.

States that saw the greatest number of foreclosures starts in the first half of 2024 included Texas (15,375 foreclosure starts); Florida (15,251 foreclosure starts); California (14,964 foreclosure starts); New York (7,523 foreclosure starts); and Illinois (7,240 foreclosure starts).

Bank repossessions decline in first half of 2024 from last year
Lenders foreclosed (REO) on a total of 18,726 U.S. properties in the first six months of 2024, down 17 percent from the first half of 2023 and down 10 percent from the first half of 2022, but up 92 percent from the first half of 2021.

States that posted the greatest number of REOs in the first half of 2024 included California (1,575 REOs); Pennsylvania (1,568 REOs); Illinois (1,540 REOs); Michigan (1,432 REOs); and Texas (1,197 REOs).

Q2 2024 foreclosure activity below pre-recession averages in 79 percent of major markets
There were a total of 89,466 U.S. properties with a foreclosure filings during the second quarter of 2024, down 6 percent from the previous quarter and down 8 percent from a year ago.

The national foreclosure activity total in Q2 2024 was 68 percent below the pre-recession average of 278,912 per quarter from Q1 2006 to Q3 2007.

Second quarter foreclosure activity was below pre-recession averages in 177 out 224 (79 percent) metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000 and sufficient historical foreclosure data, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, Riverside–San Bernardino, Phoenix, and Detroit.

Metro areas with second quarter foreclosure activity above pre-recession averages included Honolulu, HI; Richmond, VA; Baltimore, MD; Virginia-Beach, VA; Albany, New York; and Montgomery, AL.

Average time to foreclose increases for second quarter in a row
Properties foreclosed in Q2 2024 had been in the foreclosure process an average of 815 days. That figure was up 11 percent from the previous quarter and down 33 percent from Q2 2023.

Average Days to Complete Foreclosure

States with the longest average foreclosure timelines for homes foreclosed in Q2 2024 were Louisiana (3,686 days); Hawaii (2,597 days); New York (2,034 days); Georgia (1,929 days); and Nevada (1,852 days).

States with the shortest average foreclosure timelines for homes foreclosed in Q2 2024 were New Hampshire (82 days); Texas (147 days); Minnesota (151 days); Oregon (206 days); and Montana (212 days).

June 2024 Foreclosure Activity High-Level Takeaways

• Nationwide in June 2024, one in every 5,071 properties had a foreclosure filing.
• States with the highest foreclosure rates in June 2024 were Illinois (one in every 3,041 housing units with a foreclosure filing); New Jersey (one in every 3,042 housing units); Florida (one in every 3,202 housing units); South Carolina (one in every 3,346 housing units); and Maryland (one in every 3,486 housing units).
• 18,574 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in June 2024, down 17 percent from the previous month and down 22.7 percent from June 2023.
• Lenders completed the foreclosure process on 2,891 U.S. properties in June 2024, up .4 percent from the previous month and down 10 percent from June 2023.

U.S. Foreclosure Market Data by State – Jan to Jun 2024

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 30TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include ATTOM Cloud, bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property navigator and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, making property data more readily accessible and optimized for AI applications– AI-Ready Solutions. 

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SOURCE ATTOM