Economic pressures are disrupting the foreclosure market — and experts say it could be the start of a trend.
In May, there were more than 35,000 properties with foreclosure filings, according to a report the real estate data firm ATTOM released Tuesday. Those filings include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions across the country.
Though that’s a 1% decrease from April’s foreclosure activity, it’s a 9% uptick from the same time a year earlier. Rob Barber, ATTOM CEO, described the phenomenon as “a mixed picture.”
“This suggests that while fewer new defaults are being initiated, lenders may still be working through a backlog of existing cases. We’ll be watching closely in the months ahead to see how these trends evolve,” Barber said in a statement.
Indeed, even though lenders started foreclosing on fewer homes in May than in April, repossessions, or finished foreclosures, increased. Lenders repossessed nearly 4,000 properties in May — 7% more than in April and 34% more than the comparable time a year earlier.
It’s a continuation of an upward trend that’s manifested in the first five months of this year as repossessions started rising. The measure had been declining for the previous two years, but starting in January, ATTOM’s data began showing slight shifts. So far, repossession growth peaked in April, when it reached 13.6%.
The states with the greatest number of repossessions in May included Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida.