BOSTON – January filings of foreclosure deeds, the final step in the foreclosure process, rose 21.75 percent year over year in Massachusetts, but rose only 11.54 percent in Bristol County, according to statistics released today by The Warren Group.
Statewide, 974 foreclosure deeds were filed last month, a 174-deed increase over the 800 recorded in January 2008. Eighty-seven foreclosure deeds were recorded in Bristol County, nine more than the 78 filed in January 2008.
Yet, although more foreclosures were completed in January than in the same month a year ago, fewer foreclosure petitions were filed in almost every Bay State county – and in Nantucket County, the sole exception, the number of petitions was unchanged from a year ago.
Statewide, January filings of foreclosure petitions – the first step taken by a lender toward foreclosing on a property – fell 38.98 percent to 1,960 filings last month from 3,212 petitions filed in January 2008. And in Bristol County, foreclosure petitions fell by 39.33 percent to 162 last month from 267 a year ago.
“Several large banks and lending institutions have recently suspended foreclosures and lenders are facing more political pressure to slow down and work with borrowers (READ MORE), so that could be why there has been a 39-percent drop in the number of foreclosure petitions compared to a year earlier,” Timothy M. Warren Jr., chief executive of the Boston-based real estate tracker, said in a statement this morning.
“But it’s important to note that foreclosure deeds have increased from a year earlier,” even though the pace of foreclosure-deed recording has “actually remained fairly steady in Massachusetts over the last four months,” Warren said.
“We know that it can take many months between the time that a foreclosure is initiated and an actual foreclosure takes place,” he noted, “so some of the foreclosures that occurred in January could have been initiated during the first quarter of 2008, when lenders were filing about 3,000 foreclosure petitions per month.”
The foreclosure process in Massachusetts – from petition to deed – is now taking an average of three months longer than it did two years ago, according to a recent report in Banker & Tradesman, a journal published by The Warren Group. In 2006, the process took an average of 253 days; in 2008, it took an average of 342 days.
The Warren Group Inc. is a provider of New England real estate data and the publisher of Banker & Tradesman and other journals. Additional information is available at www.TheWarrenGroup.com.
