Foreclosure Filings Fell 3% in 2015

Irvine, CA, January 14, 2016—Foreclosure filings were reported on 1,083,572 U.S. properties in 2015, down 3% from 2014 and down 62% from the peak of 2,871,891 properties with foreclosure filings in 2010, according to RealtyTrac.

The nearly 1.1 million properties with foreclosure filings in 2015 was the lowest annual total since 2006, when there were 717,522 properties with foreclosure filings nationwide.

The 2015 report also shows that 0.82% of all U.S. housing units (one in every 122) had at least one foreclosure filing in 2015, the second consecutive year where the annual foreclosure rate has been below 1% of all U.S. housing units.

RealtyTrac’s year-end foreclosure report is a count of unique properties with a foreclosure filing during the year based on publicly recorded and published foreclosure filings collected in more than 2,500 counties nationwide, with address-level data on more than 23 million foreclosure filings historically also available for license or customized reporting.

The report also includes new data for December, when there were 103,373 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings, down 1% from the previous month and down 9% from a year ago, the third consecutive month with a year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity.

U.S. foreclosure starts in December were down 30% from a year ago—the sixth consecutive month with an annual decrease in foreclosure starts—while U.S. bank repossessions in December increased 65% from a year ago, the 10th consecutive month with an annual increase in REOs.