The ranking is a marked improvement from just a few years ago, when Colorado’s foreclosure rate was leading the nation, according to RealtyTrac, the Irvine, Calif.-based company that released the report. In 2006, Colorado was No. 1 for the most of the year. In 2007, it was usually ranked in the top three.  Even as foreclosure rates soared in other states, surpassing Colorado’s rate, the state was typically on RealtyTrac’s top 10 list.

1 out of 428 households in foreclosure

For January, one out of every 428 households in Colorado was in some stage of foreclosure, compared with the overall U.S. average of one out of every 409 households. And while the national foreclosure rate dropped 9.67 percent from December, Colorado’s dropped by 16.31 percent.   Some 5,029 homes were in some stage of foreclosure from the first Notice of Default to REO (Real Estate Owned) when the bank takes over the property following a public trustee auction, according to RealtyTrac, which collects and sells real estate data.

Colorado holding its own

Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing, which is last week released its own foreclosure report, using a different methodology, said it makes sense that Colorado has a lower foreclosure rate than the national average, ” given the unprecedented growth in foreclosures in places like Florida, California, Arizona and Michigan.  Colorado simply wasn’t able to keep up with those places when it came to new foreclosures.”

Also, Colorado’s unemployment rate is lower than the national average of just below 10 percent.

“Now employment is the driving factor, and since Colorado has a better unemployment rate than the national average, I expect to see foreclosures here continue to fall behind the national rate,” McMaken said.

Still, “we shouldn’t be smug, of course,” he added. “There’s still no positive job growth in Colorado and we have yet to see what will happen when the home buyer tax credits finally expire,” later this year.

For the entire nation, there were 315,716 properties in January in some stage of the foreclosure process, according to RealtyTrac. REO activity nationwide was down 5 percent from the previous month, but up 31 percent from January 2009; default notices were down 12 percent from the previous month, but up 4 percent from January 2009; and scheduled foreclosure auctions were down 11 percent from the previous month, but up 15 percent from January 2009.

Foreclosure surge may be coming

“January foreclosure numbers are exhibiting a pattern very similar to a year ago: a double-digit percentage jump in December foreclosure activity followed by a 10 percent drop in January,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac “If history repeats itself we will see a surge in the numbers over the next few months as lenders foreclose onsdelinquent loans where neither the existing loan modification programs or the new short saleand deed-in-lieu of foreclosure alternatives works.”

Nevada was ranked No. 1, with one out of every 95 homes in some stage of foreclosure. Nevada has had that dubious honor for 37 consecutive months. California, Florida and Arizona posted the three highest state totals in terms of properties receiving foreclosure filings in January, and together those states accounted for more than 44 percent of the national total.

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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The good news is that foreclosure filings in Colorado barely rose from 2008 – only a 0.23 percent increase, according to a national report.

The bad news is that Colorado still is ranked No. 10, according to RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif.

The report showed 50,514 total properties in Colorado with some kind of foreclosure action, which equates to 2.37 percent of all housing units in foreclosure. The U.S. average is 2.21 percent.  The report also shows one out of every 42 households in foreclosure, compared with one of every 45 for the U.S. average. Foreclosure activity in Colorado, according to RealtyTrac, rose 28.2 percent from 2007, far below the 120 percent average national increase.

“It’s kind of bizarre that Colorado is still in the top 10,” said Ryan McMaken, noting that the overall rate in Colorado is very close to the national rate. Also, Colorado’s foreclosure activity has been basically flat, while it is still rising in many other parts of the country.

“RealtyTrac combines all of the different kind of foreclosure actions,”McMaken noted, while he separates new filings and homes that actually go to foreclosure sales.

“If you dig deeper, you will find that while our filings are still climbing, the number of sales are going down,” as banks work with borrower to modify loans, he noted. “We do show a net increase in activity, and we probably will continue to do so, as long as the number of filings continue to rise.”

Still, rather than the 10th worst state in the nation as far as foreclosures, he said Colorado is really more in the middle of the pack, he said. That is also affirmed my Mortgage Banker Association numbers, which shows Colorado in the middle of the U.S., as far as delinquent loans.

An earlier report by InsideRealEstateNews.com found that while foreclosure filings in the Denver area rose by 6.4 percent in 2009 from 2008, most of the percentage increases were found in Boulder, Broomfield and Douglas counties, while activity was flat or dropped slightly in Denver and Adams county. (For that report, please visit this blog.)

Nationwide, RealtyTrac  found more than 3.9 million foreclosure actions -  default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 2. 8 million properties in the U.S.  in 2009, a 21 percent increase in total properties from 2008 and a 120 percent increase in total properties from 2007.

Four states accounted for more than 50 percent of the nation’s 2009 total, with more than 1.4 million properties receiving foreclosure filings in California, Florida, Arizona and Illinois. And almost half of those – 632,573 – were in California.

“That means that 46 other states split the remaining half,” noted McMaken. He said some people might think that the foreclosure pain was spread fairly evenly among the states, but that is not the case.

“What that means a lot of states are clumped together, and there will be a very small percent separating them,” McMaken said.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 349,519 U.S. properties foreclosure filings  on 349,519 U.S. properties in December, a 14 percent jump from November  and a 15 percent increase from December 2008 — when a similar monthly jump occurred. Despite the increase in December, foreclosure activity in the fourth quarter decreased 7 percent from the third quarter, although it was still up 18 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008.

“As bad as the 2009 numbers are, they probably would have been worse if not for legislative and industry-related delays in processing delinquent loans,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.

“After peaking in July with over 361,000 homes receiving a foreclosure notice, we saw four straight monthly decreases driven primarily by short-term factors: trial loan modifications, state legislation extending the foreclosure process and an overwhelming volume of inventory clogging the foreclosure pipeline. Despite all the delays, foreclosure activity still hit a record high for our report in 2009, capped off by a substantial increase in December. In the long term a massive supply of delinquent loans continues to loom over the housing market, and many of those delinquencies will end up in the foreclosure process in 2010 and beyond as lenders gradually work their way through the backlog.”

Nevada led the nation last year, with more than 10 percent of the homes receiving some type of a foreclosure action in 2009, giving it the dubious distinction of being No. 1 for foreclosures for the third consecutive year.

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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In October, Colorado’s declining foreclosure ranked it No. 11 in the nation ,with one foreclosure filing for every 421 households, according to a report released today by California-based RealtyTrac.

Colorado’s foreclosure activity in October was down by 6.08 percent from October 2008, while the nation, as a whole showed an 18.86 percent year-over-year increase, according to the Irvine, Calif.-based company.

From September to October, Colorado showed a 18.75 percent decline in total foreclosure filings, while the nation showed a 3.5 percent drop.

In Colorado, one out of every 421 households had some kind of foreclosure filings, ranging from what it calls a notice of default to REO (real-estate owned.) Nationwide, one out of every 385 households had some kind of real estate filings.

“Looking at my estimates for October, It looks like Realtytrac’s October number for foreclosure filngs (what they call NTS) is in the neighborhood of the true number,” said Ryan McMaken, of the Colorado Division of Housing. “Last month’s totals by our calculations were similar, although Realtytrac shows an 18 percent decrease from September.”

McMaken noted that October 2008 was “quite a big month for foreclosures, so it’s not surprising that Realtytrac shows a decrease for this year over last year. It’s unlikely that October’s totals, once we finish calculating them, will top last year’s October total.”

RealtyTrac reported 1,261 REOs in Colorado in October, which McMaken thought was too small. He said that his data is likely to show a higher number of REOs in metro-Denver area counties than RealtyTrac is reporting for the entire state.

Nationwide, RealtyTrac reported 332,292 foreclosure filings, which include default noitces, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossession, a decreae of 3 percent from September, but up almost 19 percent from October 2008.
“Three consecutive monthly declines is unprecedented for our report, and on first blush an
indication that the foreclosure tide may be turning,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive
officer of RealtyTrac. “However, the fundamental forces driving foreclosure activity in this
housing downturn — high-risk mortgages, negative equity, and unemployment — continue to
loom over any nascent recovery. And despite all the efforts and resources directed at helping
homeowners avoid foreclosure, we continue to see foreclosure activity levels that are
substantially higher than a year ago in most states.”
Despite a 26 percent decrease in foreclosure activity from the previous month, Nevada
continued to document the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate — one in every 80 housing
units received a foreclosure filing in October. A total of 13,842 Nevada properties received a
foreclosure filing during the month, a 4 percent decrease from October 2008 and the first ever
year-over-year decrease in Nevada since RealtyTrac began tabulating the year-over-year
change in January 2006. Nevada default notices were down 10 percent from October 2008,
and scheduled foreclosure auctions were down 6 percent from October 2008, while bank
repossessions were up 8 percent from October 2008. A new foreclosure mediation program
implemented by state law (AB 149) in July may be slowing the inflow of distressed properties
into the foreclosure pipeline.
With one in every 156 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in October, California posted
the nation’s second highest state foreclosure rate for the second month in a row.

A total of85,420 California properties received a foreclosure filing during the month, a decrease of 1.06  percent from the previous month but still nearly 50 percent above the total reported in
October 2008. The state’s default notices and scheduled foreclosure auctions were up 120
percent and 73 percent respectively from October 2008, when California foreclosure activity
was in the midst of a three-month trough after a law (SB 1137) requiring lenders to give
distressed homeowners extra notification before initiating foreclosure took effect in September
2008.
Florida posted the third highest state foreclosure rate, with one in every 168 housing units
receiving a foreclosure filing in October. A total of 51,911 Florida properties received a
foreclosure filing during the month, a nearly 6 percent decrease from the previous month and
a decrease of 4 percent from October 2008. It was the first year-over-year decrease in overall
Florida foreclosure activity since July 2006.
Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the nation’s 10 highest were Arizona,
Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland and Utah.

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

Related Posts:

• Colorado No. 12 in foreclosures
• Colorado No. 10 for foreclosures
• RealtyTrac’s foreclosure data wrong, state officials says
• Denver 11th for foreclosures
• Colorado foreclosures: Hopeful signs, but crisis isn't over