NY foreclosure activity up 46 percent in 3Q

Report shows filings up over last year’s levels in most U.S. cities

Foreclosure activity rose on a year-over-year basis in 65 percent of all U.S. metro areas, including New York, during the third quarter, according to a new report from RealtyTrac, released today.

Foreclosure filings — including notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were received on a total of 20,504 New York-area properties, up 46 percent from the third quarter of 2009 but down by around 8 percent from the second quarter of this year for a 160th-place ranking among the 206 metro areas surveyed.

Despite the uptick in foreclosure activity from last year, New York has “avoided the worst of the foreclosure problems and continues to do so,” said RealtyTrac spokesperson Daren Blomquist.

Overall, U.S. foreclosure activity dipped by 0.79 percent year-over-year and was up by 3.67 percent from the second quarter.

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Meanwhile, the country’s foreclosure hot spots showed few signs of relinquishing that status. All of the metro areas with the top 10 foreclosure rates in the third quarter were located in either Florida, California, Nevada or Arizona, as were 19 of the top 20 metro areas.

A nationwide foreclosure freeze — in the wake of recent revelations about errors in lenders’ foreclosure paperwork — is not likely to help matters.

“As far as we can determine, this issue is going to delay foreclosures but not ultimately stop any foreclosures that would’ve occurred otherwise… or very few of them,” Blomquist said.

While RealtyTrac expects “a bit of a dip” in October’s foreclosure filings, he added that “right now it seems like the banks are going as quickly as possible to review their processes and start the foreclosures again.”