Foreclosures storm back to pre-pandemic levels

Some 164,581 residential properties in the U.S. had foreclosure filings in the first six months of the year, up 153 percent from the same period last year but down 1 percent from the identical period in 2020.

Cleveland, Ohio, topped the list with a foreclosure filing rate of 0.4 percent, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Jacksonville, North Carolina, were close behind with 0.33 percent and 0.31 percent, respectively, according to an analysis by Attom Data Solutions of more than 200 major metro areas.

Foreclosure filings include default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions. Not all filings result in foreclosures.

Chicago had one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates as the end of moratoriums pushed the numbers back toward pre-pandemic levels. Some 0.30 percent of the city’s housing units had foreclosure filings, compared with the national rate of 0.12 percent.

The data represents a slow, steady climb of foreclosures back to pre-pandemic levels, Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at Attom, said in a statement.

“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,” he said.

The foreclosures were often on loans that were already in foreclosure or were more than 120 days delinquent before the pandemic.

“Many of these loans were protected by the government’s foreclosure moratorium, or they would have already been foreclosed on two years ago,” he said. “There’s very little delinquency or default activity that’s truly new in the numbers we’re tracking.”

Just seven of the 223 metro areas analyzed bucked the trend. Lake Havasu, Arizona; Eugene, Oregon; Springfield, Illinois; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Brownsville, Texas, had a lower foreclosure rate than in the first half of last year.

Illinois had the highest foreclosure rate among states, at more than a quarter of a percent of housing units. Close behind were New Jersey, at 0.24 percent, Ohio at 0.21 percent, Delaware at 0.2 percent and South Carolina at 0.19 percent.