Foreclosure Activity Increases 7% in Q1:RealtyTrac

The foreclosure tide is still rising. RealtyTrac reported Thursday that foreclosure filings were brought against nearly 1 million properties during the first threemonths of 2010. That’s a 7 percent increase from the previous quarter, 16 percent higher than a year ago, and equates to one in every 138 homes in the United States.

Altogether, foreclosure filings – including default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions – were reported on 932,234 properties from January to March of 2010. According to RealtyTrac, the number of scheduled auctions and bank repossessions hit new quarterly records.

All foreclosure types spiked in March. Filings were reported on 367,056 properties last month, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the previous month and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

“Foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2010 followed a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first quarter of 2009: a shallow trough in January and February followed by a substantial spike in March,” explained James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s CEO. “One difference, however, is that the increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure,” with REOs increasing in the first quarter of this year, compared to a decrease during the same period last year, he said.

“This subtle shift in the numbers pushed REOs to the highest quarterly total we’ve ever seen in our report and may be further evidence that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory that has built up over the last year as foreclosure prevention programs

By Carrie Bay