Statewide foreclosure filings up 3 percent in May; down 19 percent from one year ago

Foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 9,055 Texas properties in May, up 3 percent from April, but still 19 percent below the level reported for May 2010, according to the latest RealtyTrac^® U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. One in every 1,074 Texas housing units received a foreclosure filing in May, the nation’s 28^th highest foreclosure rate. During the month, the state’s unemployment rate continued to improve, remaining just under the national average.

California continued to lead the nation in total monthly foreclosure activity, reporting 51,906 properties with foreclosure filings. Florida maintained the second highest total, reporting 19,192 properties with foreclosure filings. Michigan moved up to third highest total, tallying 14,614 properties with foreclosure filings. Arizona dropped to fourth place, reporting 13,122 properties with foreclosure filings. Nevada maintained the fifth highest foreclosure total reporting 11,039 properties with foreclosure filings for the month.

The rest of the states in the nation’s top 10 for May included Illinois (10,574), Georgia (10,503), Texas (9,055), Ohio (8,379) and Wisconsin (4,660). The top five states accounted for 51 percent of the nation’s total foreclosure activity for the month.

Kaufman County posts top foreclosure rate for May

Kaufman County posted the highest foreclosure rate of all Texas counties in May, with one in every 361 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing — nearly three times the state average. Bastrop County reported the second highest foreclosure rate, where one in every 363 housing units received a foreclosure filing during the month — nearly three times the state average. Johnson County came in third, with one in every 392 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing during the month — 2.7 times the state average.

Harris County led the state in foreclosure activity in May

Harris County led all counties, reporting 1,879 properties with foreclosure filings for the month. Dallas County was second highest, reporting 1,194 properties with foreclosure filings. Third highest in the state was Tarrant County, where 945 properties with foreclosure filings were reported. Bexar County was fourth highest, tallying 603 properties with foreclosure filings. Fifth highest was Travis County, where 427 properties with foreclosure filings were reported for the month.

State the eighth largest contributor to nation’s foreclosure crisis in May

Texas accounted for 4 percent of the 214,927 properties with foreclosure filings reported nationwide in May. Total U.S. activity decreased by nearly 2 percent from April, and was down 33 percent from the level reported in May 2010. One in every 605 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the month.

“Foreclosure processing delays continue to mask the true face of the foreclosure situation, although there were some clues in the May numbers of what lies behind that mask,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “First, activity spiked in May for various stages of the foreclosure process in some states, a pattern that has occurred in several states over the past few months. This pattern provides evidence that lenders are somewhat unevenly pushing batches of bad loans through foreclosure as they overhaul their paperwork and documentation procedures and as they determine that some local markets are able to absorb more foreclosure inventory.

“Second, while the inventory of properties in the foreclosure process has declined steadily over the past six months — thanks in large part to 16 consecutive months of year-over-year declines in new default notices — the inventory of unsold bank-owned REOs increased in April and May even as new REO activity slowed in both of those months,” Saccacio continued. “That points to continued weak demand from buyers, making it tough for lenders to unload their REO inventory. Even at a significantly lower level than a year ago, the new supply of REOs exceeds the amount being sold each month.”

Report methodology

The RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the RealtyTrac database during the month — broken out by type of filing by state, county and metropolitan statistical area. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the month may have been recorded in previous months. Data is collected from more than 2,200 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. RealtyTrac’s report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). If more than one foreclosure document is received for a property during the month, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The report also checks if the same type of document was filed against a property in a previous month. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state the property is in, the report does not count the property in the current month.

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Texas Top Foreclosure Rates By County – May 2011

Texas Top Foreclosure Totals by County – May 2011