Completed foreclosures dropped dramatically in October CoreLogic said today, falling to 48,000 for the month compared to 64,000 in September and 68,000 in October 2013.  These were decreases of 25.6 percent and 30 percent respectively.

A completed foreclosures represents the actual repossession of a home.  Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.6 million completed foreclosures across the country.  To provide perspective, CoreLogic compares the current numbers to the average number of completed foreclosures, 21,000 that occurred each month between 2000 and 2006, prior to the financial crisis.

The foreclosure inventory, that is the number of properties currently in process of foreclosure, numbered approximately 879,000 homes in October.  This is a 31 percent decrease from the 1.3 million homes in the inventory in October 2012.  The foreclosure inventory as of October 2013 represented 2.2 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared to 3.1 percent in October 2012. The foreclosure inventory slipped 2.9 percent from September 2013 to October 2013.

Twenty-three states matched or closely matched the national year-over-year decrease in the foreclosure inventory.  The states with the largest foreclosure inventories as a percentage of mortgaged properties were Florida (7.1 percent), New Jersey (6.7 percent), New York (4.9 percent), Maine (3.8 percent) and Connecticut (3.7 percent).  All five states are judicial foreclosure states where the involvement of the court has led to large foreclosure backlogs and protracted foreclosure timelines.

"Year over year, the foreclosure inventory, as a percentage of all homes with a mortgage, has declined almost a full percentage point to 2.2 percent," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. "This is good news for the housing and mortgage finance markets, but the rate remains elevated relative to the pre-crisis level of about 0.6 percent. There are almost 900,000 properties still in foreclosure, but a normal level would be only a quarter of the current stock."

"The scourge of an elevated foreclosure inventory is easing. In October, every state posted a year-over-year decline in completed foreclosures, which is positive news," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Additionally, the rate of serious delinquencies, which fell more than 25 percent year over year, is at the lowest level in nearly five years, which is great news as we head into a new year."