There were 63,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in May 2012 versus 77,000 in May 2011, according to CoreLogic’s National Foreclosure Report released today.
As of May 2012, there were 1.4 million homes, or 3.4% of all homes with a mortgage, in the national foreclosure inventory. This is compared to 3.5% or 1.5 million homes in May 2011.
This nationwide inventory shows the fraction of all mortgages in some phase of the foreclosure process.
The report said that there have been roughly 3.6 million completed foreclosures across the nation since the financial crisis began in September 2008. Completed foreclosures indicate the total number of homes that were actually lost to foreclosure.
CoreLogic also highlighted the different trends at an individual state level. The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in May 2012 were California (133,000), Florida (92,000), Michigan (60,000), Texas (58,000), and Georgia (57,000).
Meanwhile, the five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures were South Dakota (48), District of Columbia (74), North Dakota (547), West Virginia (620), and Hawaii (623).
“Though the national foreclosure inventory levels remain steady, around 1.4 million homes, there have been dramatic shifts at the state level,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.
He added that Nevada, Arizona and Michigan each experienced at least a 20% drop in the foreclosure inventory from a year ago. “While foreclosure inventories in most states are declining, the foreclosure inventory is still rising in many judicial states, such as Hawaii, New York and Connecticut,” Nallathambi said.
