Colorado foreclosures fall

Foreclosure activity in Colorado fell by 35.7 percent in the third quarter from the third quarter in 2013, according to a national report released today.

The report by RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif., shows that Colorado saw a much bigger year-over-year drop than the 22.7 average decline for the entire country.

Boulder, for was down 72.3 percent, while Douglas and Jefferson Counties dropped by 47 percent and almost 45 percent, respectively. Adams County showed a 38.8 percent drop. Denver saw foreclosure activity fall by only 3.9 percent.

Ryan McMaken, economist for the Colorado Division of Housing, who does his own analysis of foreclosure activity in the state, said RealtyTrac’s data are consistent with his findings.

“These latest numbers reflect what I’m seeing also in recent months,” McMaken said.

“My March data is still incomplete, but clearly the general trend right now is one in which numbers are up slightly, month over month, in recent months, while numbers still remains down 20 to 30 percent when compared year over year,” he continued.

“The total number (RealtyTrac) gives for the month – about 1,000 NEDS (Notice of Election and Demand) is certainly plausible, and at least in my data, those are numbers that we could describe as 6 or 7-year lows.

Nationally, there were 117,485 total foreclosure actions, everything from default notices to auctions of foreclosure sales, known as REOs, or real-estate owned. That was a 4 percent increase from February, but down 23 percent from March 2013.

“Now that the foreclosure deluge has dried up, banks are turning their attention back to properties that have been sitting in foreclosure limbo for some time,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

“This is most evident in judicial foreclosure states that were more likely to have impediments in the foreclosure process, but there are also signs of this catch-up trend happening in some non-judicial states like California, where an increasing number of judicial foreclosure filings boosted foreclosure starts in the first quarter.”

Colorado is a non-judicial state, which uses the public trustee system.

“Banks will also now be able to devote more resources to dealing with the lingering inventory of nearly half a million already-foreclosed homes that still need to be sold,” Blomquist continued. “Our estimates indicate only 10 percent of these bank-owned properties are listed for sale and more than half are still occupied by the former homeowner or tenant.”

In Colorado, it took an average of 305 days to sell a REO in the first quarter. Only Texas, Michigan and Minnesota took longer. Insiderealestatenews.com