It's quite the opposite, as foreclosure auctions are at an 11-year high, according to a new report by ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation’s largest multi-sourced property database.
ATTOM Data Solutions released its Year-End 2017 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 676,535 U.S. properties in 2017, down 27 percent from 2016 and down 76 percent from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010 to the lowest level since 2005.
Those 676,535 properties with foreclosure filings in 2017 represented 0.51 percent of all U.S. housing units, down from 0.70 percent in 2016 and down from a peak of 2.23 percent in 2010 to the lowest level since 2005.
The report also includes new data for December 2017, when there were 64,651 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings, up 1 percent from the previous month but still down 25 percent from a year ago — the 27th consecutive month with a year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity.
A total of 318,165 U.S. properties were scheduled for public foreclosure auction (the same as a foreclosure start in some states) in 2017, down 27 percent from 2016 and down from a peak of 1,600,593 in 2010 to a new all-time low going back as far as foreclosure auction data is available — 2006.
“The data for the Seattle market tells a very big story, and that is we are not seeing a housing bubble forming,” said Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate, covering the Seattle market, where scheduled foreclosure auctions in 2017 dropped 47 percent to an 11-year low. “With foreclosure rates at less than 0.4 percent of total housing units, the market is remarkably stable. That said, we are certainly suffering from serious affordability issues, but this is not translating into defaults on loans.”
The District of Columbia and seven states posted a year-over-year increase in scheduled foreclosure auctions in 2017, including New York (up 9 percent to the highest level since 2006); Oklahoma (up 4 percent); Connecticut (up 7 percent); and Maine (up 2 percent).
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