The number of foreclosure starts in Massachusetts declined 37.7 percent in February 2017 compared to February 2016, The Warren Group, a publisher of real estate news and data, reported April 4, 2017.
“Foreclosure starts are finally in decline as many lenders have cleared their backlogs of delinquent mortgages awaiting foreclosure processing,” Timothy Warren, CEO of The Warren Group, said. “We are now seeing declines on both a year-over-year basis and a month-over-month basis. With fewer foreclosures getting started, we now see declines in the later stages of the process,” Warren said. “Both foreclosure auctions and foreclosure deeds fell in February.”
The number of foreclosure deeds – the final step in the foreclosure process when there is a change in ownership – declined 7.7 percent in February to 479 recorded deeds. There were 519 foreclosure deeds in February 2016.The number of Massachusetts foreclosure auctions notices declined 6.8 percent to 600 auctions in February 2017 compared to 644 auctions scheduled the previous February.