Massachusetts Home Buyer Guide

U.S. foreclosure inventory declined 35 percent in February compared to February 2013, Corelogic, a California-based real estate data and analytics provider, reported April 3, 2014.

As of February 2014, approximately 752,000 homes in the United States were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared with 1.2 million in February 2013. Month over month, the foreclosure inventory declined 3.3 percent from January 2014. The foreclosure inventory as of February represented 1.9 percent of all U.S. homes with a mortgage, compared with 2.9 percent in February 2013. Massachusetts had a rate of 1.6 percent, below the national average.

The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes as of February 2014 were New Jersey (6.2 percent), Florida (6.0 percent), New York (4.7 percent), Maine (3.4 percent) and Connecticut (3.2 percent).

There were 43,000 completed foreclosures in the United States in February 2014, down from 51,000 in February 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 15 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures decreased 13.1 percent from 50,000 in January 2014.

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending February 2014 were Florida (118,000), Michigan (50,000), Texas (39,000), California (37,000) and Georgia (34,000). These five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures in the United States. Massachusetts recorded 2,902 completed foreclosures.

At the end of February 2014, there were 1.9 million mortgages, or 4.9 percent nationally, in serious delinquency. Massachusetts had a serious delinquency rate of 4.6 percent, below the national average, Banker & Tradesman reported April 4, 2014.

National residential shadow inventory was 1.7 million homes as of January 2014 compared with 2.2 million in January 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 23 percent.  Corelogic estimates shadow inventory by calculating the number of properties that are seriously delinquent, in foreclosure or held as REO by mortgage servicers, but are not currently listed on multiple listing services (MLS). The shadow inventory is down 22 percent compared to January 2013.