Two recent reports show that foreclosure timelines are accelerating as the foreclosure inventory shrinks to pre-crisis levels.
However, certain states, including New Jersey, New York and Florida, still have high percentages of homes in foreclosure.
According to the most recent U.S. Foreclosure Market Report from ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of RealtyTrac, residential property foreclosures nationwide in the third quarter took an average of 625 days to complete – down from 631 days in the second quarter and down from 630 days in the third quarter of 2015.
It was the first year-over-year decrease in the average number of days to foreclose since the report began tracking the metric in the first quarter of 2007.
The average time to foreclose decreased from a year ago in 19 states, including Nevada (down 22%), Massachusetts (down 22%), Michigan (down 21%), Oregon (down 20%) and Texas (down 20%).
States with the longest average foreclosure timelines in the third quarter included New Jersey (1,262 days), New York (1,070 days) and Florida (1,038 days).
States with the shortest foreclosure timelines included Virginia (196 days), New Hampshire (230 days) and Texas (246 days).
As expected, states that employed the non-judicial foreclosure process enjoyed the shortest foreclosure timelines.
The most recent Mortgage Monitor report from Black Knight Financial Services shows that, as of September, the remaining inventory of loans in active foreclosure was decreasing at the fastest rate since 2014.
What’s more, the rate of reduction has been accelerating throughout 2016.
The Black Knight report shows that together, New York and New Jersey account for more than 25% of all active foreclosure inventories in the country.
Whereas foreclosure inventories are down 23% year over year on average nationwide, New York and New Jersey are down only 17% and 16%, respectively, for the same period.
In New York, where fewer than 2% of active foreclosures are making it to foreclosure sale (or some alternative liquidation) on a monthly basis, the average active foreclosure has been delinquent for 4.6 years, according to Black Knight.
In New Jersey, that number is 4.1 years, while in Florida – which had long been the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis but has since outpaced the national average in terms of foreclosure inventory reduction – it is 3.5 years.
For all other states, the average is 2.2 years.