BOSTON – Delinquent mortgage payments continued to plague Massachusetts lenders last month, when the number of foreclosure petitions nearly doubled over year-ago levels and ads for foreclosure auctions nearly tripled, according to a report today from The Warren Group, which tracks real estate data across New England.
Mass. Land Court filings by mortage lenders of petitions to foreclose rose 92.1 percent to 2,242 from 1,167 in the same month a year ago. That compares with 1,021 petitions filed in February 2005.
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Such petitions are the first step in the foreclosure process. They do not always end in actual foreclosure; some homeowners succeed in selling or refinancing their homes before they go to auction.
Advertisements for foreclosure auctions also rose last month, soaring 199 percent to 1,005 from the year-ago 336 ads, The Warren Group said. In February 2005, the state saw 315 such ads.
“The downturn in the housing market continues to hit homeowners, making it hard for those who have borrowed large percentages of the worth of their homes to make mortgage payments,” said Timothy Warren Jr., The Warren Group’s CEO. “This made it difficult for many who found themselves in trouble to sell their homes before the onset of the foreclosure process.
“But the median price of a single-family home continued to decline in January, although sales rose for the first time in two years. This is a hopeful sign for the housing market – and the mortgage market, by extension.”
