CoreLogic: R.I. foreclosures decrease year-over-year in Oct.

CORELOGIC SAID Rhode Island's foreclosure inventory was 1.8 percent in October, and its serious delinquency rate was 5.6 percent. / COURTESY CORELOGIC
CORELOGIC SAID Rhode Island's foreclosure inventory was 1.8 percent in October, and its serious delinquency rate was 5.6 percent. / COURTESY CORELOGIC

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s foreclosure inventory out of all mortgaged homes was unchanged from September to October at 1.8 percent, but the Ocean State had fewer foreclosures compared with October 2013’s numbers, according to data firm CoreLogic.
Rhode Island went from 1,576 foreclosures in October 2013 to 1,441 in October 2014, which represents a 0.4 percentage point decline from a year earlier. Rhode Island’s serious delinquency rate was 5.6 percent in October 2014.
The Ocean State’s 1.8 percent compares to a national foreclosure inventory of 1.6 percent of homes with a mortgage, and national serious delinquency of 4.2 percent.
Serious delinquency means mortgage loans are 90 or more days late.
In a separate report, Black Knight Financial Services’ data and analytics division said Rhode Island was among the top five states with the highest percentage of seriously delinquent loans, along with Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.
There were 41,000 completed foreclosures nationally in October, a 26.4 percent decline from 55,000 recorded in October 2013, according to CoreLogic.
Maine was among the top five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes in October at 2.6 percent. Also on the list were New Jersey (5.5 percent), Florida (4.1 percent), New York (4.1 percent) and Hawaii (2.9 percent).
Connecticut had a foreclosure inventory of 2.4 percent, and serious delinquency rate of 5.6 percent, while Massachusetts had a foreclosure inventory of 1.2 percent, and serious delinquency rate of 4.2 percent. Maine’s serious delinquency rate was 5.6 percent. Vermont had a foreclosure inventory rate of 1.6 percent, and 3.3 percent serious delinquency, while New Hampshire reported 0.8 percent, and 2.9 percent, respectively.
CoreLogic said completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, approximately 5.3 million completed foreclosures have been registered across the country.
As of October 2014, approximately 605,000 homes nationally were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared with 875,000 in October 2013, a year-over-year decrease of 30.9 percent and representing 36 consecutive months of year-over-year declines. The current national foreclosure rate of 1.6 percent is the lowest inventory level since May 2008.
“While there has been a large improvement in the reduction of foreclosure inventory, completed foreclosures remain high and serve as one of the obstacles to new single-family construction,” Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic, said in a statement. “Until the flow of completed foreclosures declines to normal levels, new-home construction will not pick up because builders have little incentive to compete with foreclosure stock.”
“The foreclosure inventory is less than 2 percent and seriously delinquent loans are trending lower right now,” Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, said. “At current rates, we can expect the foreclosure inventory to slip below 500,000 units during 2015.”
Black Knight Financial Services, in its mortgage monitor report, said there are approximately 4 million borrowers in negative equity positions, representing nearly $800 billion in outstanding balances. The borrowers are “underwater,” meaning they owe more on their homes than they are worth.
Of those 4 million borrowers who are underwater, they owe approximately $39,000 on average, Black Knight said.
“Over the past two-and-a-half years, there has been sustained and continual improvement in the number of underwater borrowers in this country,” Trey Barnes, Black Knight’s senior vice president of loan data products, said in a statement. “From 33.5 percent of borrowers being in negative equity positions in January 2012, we’re now looking at less than 8 percent of borrowers underwater. However, there are still 4 million borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, despite more than two years of relatively steady home price appreciation.”

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