INCREASED FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY IN FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 2022 APPROACHES PRE-COVID LEVELS

U.S. Foreclosure Starts up 219 Percent in First Six Months of 2022; 96 Percent of Major Metro Areas Saw an Annual Increase in Foreclosure Filings; Foreclosure Rates Highest in Illinois, New Jersey, and Ohio

IRVINE, Calif., July 14, 2022 — ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its Midyear 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 164,581 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — in the first six months of 2022. That figure is up 153 percent from the same time period a year ago but down just one percent from the same time period two years ago.

Historical First Half US Foreclosure Activity Chart

“Foreclosure activity across the United States continued its slow, steady climb back to pre-pandemic levels in the first half of 2022,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. “While overall foreclosure activity is still running significantly below historic averages, the dramatic increase in foreclosure starts suggests that we may be back to normal levels by sometime in early 2023.”

Bucking the national trend with decreasing foreclosure activity compared to a year ago in the nation’s most populated metros during the first half of 2022, were only 7 of the 223 metro areas analyzed. Those metros included Lake Havasu, Arizona (down 47 percent); Eugene, Oregon (down 27 percent); Springfield, Illinois (down 19 percent); Shreveport, Louisiana (down 9 percent); and Brownsville, Texas (down 8 percent).

Illinois, New Jersey, and Ohio post highest state foreclosure rates

Nationwide 0.12 percent of all housing units (one in every 854) had a foreclosure filing in the first half of 2022.

States with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of 2022 were Illinois (0.26 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); New Jersey (0.24 percent); Ohio (0.21 percent); Delaware (0.20 percent); and South Carolina (0.19 percent).

Other states with first-half foreclosure rates among the 10 highest nationwide, were Florida (0.18 percent); Nevada (0.18 percent); Indiana (0.16 percent); Georgia (0.13 percent); and Michigan (0.13 percent).

Highest metro foreclosure rates in Cleveland, Atlantic City, and Jacksonville

Among 223 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of 2022 were Cleveland, Ohio (0.40 percent of housing units with foreclosure filings); Atlantic City, New Jersey (0.33 percent); Jacksonville, North Carolina (0.31 percent); Chicago, Illinois (0.30 percent); and Columbia, South Carolina (0.30 percent).

Other metro areas with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 highest in the first half of 2022 were Rockford, Illinois (0.30 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Lakeland, Florida (0.27 percent); Akron, Ohio (0.24 percent); Fayetteville, North Carolina (0.24 percent); and Trenton, New Jersey (0.23 percent).

Foreclosure starts up 219 percent from last year

A total of 117,383 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in the first six months of 2022, up 219 percent from the first half of last year and up 19 percent from the first half of 2020.

States that saw the greatest number of foreclosures starts in the first half of 2022 included, California (12,805 foreclosure starts); Florida (11,448 foreclosure starts); Tennessee (10,970 foreclosure starts); Illinois (8,411 foreclosure starts); and Ohio (6,987 foreclosure starts).

“It’s important to note that many of the foreclosure starts we’re seeing today – in fact, much of the overall foreclosure activity we’re seeing right now – is on loans that were either already in foreclosure or were more than 120 days delinquent prior to the pandemic,” Sharga added. “Many of these loans were protected by the government’s foreclosure moratorium, or they would have already been foreclosed on two years ago. There’s very little delinquency or default activity that’s truly new in the numbers we’re tracking.”

Bank repossessions climb in first half of 2022

Lenders foreclosed (REO) on a total of 20,750 U.S. properties in the first six months of 2022, up 30 percent from the last half of 2021 and up 113 percent from the first half of 2020.

States that posted the greatest number of REOs in the first half of 2022 included, Illinois (2,434 REOs); Michigan (2,259 REOs); Pennsylvania (1,290 REOs); California (1,043 REOs); and Florida (1,041 REOs).  

Q2 2022 foreclosure activity below pre-recession averages in 79 percent of major markets

There were a total of 90,139 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in Q2 2022, up 15 percent from the previous quarter and up 165 percent from a year ago.

The national foreclosure activity total in Q2 2022 was 68 percent below the pre-recession average of 278,912 per quarter from Q1 2006 to Q3 2007, making Q2 2022 the 23rd consecutive quarter with foreclosure activity below the pre-recession average.

Second quarter foreclosure activity was below pre-recession averages in 177 out 223 (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, Richmond, Virginia-Beach, Albany, and Montgomery.

Average foreclosure timeline increases from last year

Properties foreclosed in the second quarter of 2022 took an average of 948 days from the first public foreclosure notice to complete the foreclosure process, up from 917 days in the previous quarter and up from 922 days in the second quarter of 2021.

Historical Avg Days to Complete Foreclosure Chart

States with the longest average foreclosure timelines for foreclosures completed in Q2 2022 were Nevada (2,683 days), Hawaii (2,619 days), New Jersey (1,984 days), Louisiana (1,901 days), and New York (1,823 days).

States with the shortest average foreclosure timelines for foreclosures completed in Q2 2022 were West Virginia (82 days), Montana (84 days), Missouri (117 days), Minnesota (141 days), and Arkansas (154 days).

June 2022 Foreclosure Activity High-Level Takeaways

• Nationwide in June 2022, one in every 4,431 properties had a foreclosure filing.
• States with the highest foreclosure rates in June 2022 were Illinois (one in every 2,096 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Delaware (one in every 2,117 housing units); Ohio (one in every 2,386 housing units); Nevada (one in every 2,408 housing units); and South Carolina (one in every 2,471 housing units).
• 22,239 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in June 2022, up 1 percent from the previous month and up 226 percent from a year ago.

Lenders completed the foreclosure process on 3,239 U.S. properties in June 2022, up 13 percent from the previous month and up 40 percent from a year ago.

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 20TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.

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SOURCE ATTOM