Filed under: Bad news, Economic data, Housing, Recession

Home foreclosure activity dipped 4% in February 2008, as fewer default notice, auction sales notices and bank repossessions were reported than the previous month. However, overall activity remains 60% higher than a year ago, research firm RealtyTrac announced Thursday.

From February 2006 to February 2007 foreclosure activity rose 19%, RealtyTrac said.

Foreclosure filings totaled 223,651 in February 2008, a 60% increase from February 2007, with 1 in 557 U.S. households receiving a foreclosure notice during the month.

State foreclosure rates

Nevada (1 in 165 households) had the U.S.’s highest foreclosure rate, followed by California (1 in 242 households), followed by Florida (1 in 254 households). Vermont (1 in 76,836 households), West Virginia (1 in 22,364), and North Dakota (1 in 13,839) had the nation’s lowest foreclosure rates.

Meanwhile, California reported the most foreclosure filings, with 53,629, a 131% increase from February 2007. Florida was second, with 32,447, a 69% increase from February 2007.

Housing Sector Analysis: The key statistic, obviously, is the alarming 60% increase in foreclosure activity year-over year — February 2008 compared to February 2007. When comparing February 2007 to February 2006, activity increased 19%, hence the rate of foreclosure activity has more than doubled during the two periods surveyed. In addition, the month-to-month — January 2008-to-February 2008 — dip must be qualified: the decline, which also occurred during the same period in 2007, most likely reflects difficult comparisons with the January month, which is historically always high due to banks/lien holders cramming a great of foreclosure work into the year-end month of December to meet tax filing and related end-of-year deadlines.

Finally, RealtyTrac said the 60% increase in foreclosure activity indicates that the nation still has not reached the peak of foreclosure activity in this housing cycle; the view from here is that the conclusion is reasonable.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 8:12 am and is filed under Real Estate and Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.