Foreclosure filings slow in Utah but spike elsewhere - Utah Down to 15th Nationally

The Salt Lake Tribune noted in the article below that Utah is down to 15 now in foreclosure. This is good new for consumer confidence.

With the lack of inventory on the market,  the number of buyer rising and interest rate at a 40 year low this is a great time to sell your home.

One thing to think about when deciding to sell your home is the number of homes you will be competing with (supple and demand) this will help you as a seller to get a high price for your home. So let get that home on the market and get you the highest price possible.

Call me today for more information

 

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

First Published Mar 15 2012 07:21 pm • Last Updated Mar 15 2012 11:57 pm

Utah, which had one of the nation’s highest rates of foreclosure filings for much of the past two years, has eased back to 15th highest, a new report shows.

With a rate of one in every 721 households receiving some sort of notice in February, Utah is faring better than the national rate of 1 in every 637 households, according to foreclosure-listing firm RealtyTrac.

Nevada continued to post the nation’s highest rate last month, with one in every 278 households in the state receiving a foreclosure-related filing. That’s more than twice the national average.

Foreclosure activity surged last month across about half of the nation’s states, as banks tackled a backlog of homes with mortgages that had gone unpaid yet remained in limbo because of delays stemming from foreclosure-abuse claims.

The increase occurred across 26 states where the courts supervise the foreclosure process. In contrast, the 24 states where the courts do not play a role in the process saw activity decline in February, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

Utah, which falls into the latter category, saw foreclosures drop by 61 percent from February 2011 to the same month this year, according to the report.

Although uneven, the pace of foreclosures is accelerating after a $25 billion settlement reached last month between the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders and officials in 49 of the 50 states (including Utah). The settlement was tied to the industry’s foreclosure abuses.

Major banks temporarily put foreclosures on hold in the fall of 2010 after claims surfaced that lenders and mortgage servicers were processing foreclosures without verifying documents. As a result, many homes that would have normally ended up foreclosed were left in a procedural limbo, particularly in states where courts play a role in the process.

But that logjam has begun to ease, and banks are moving to sort out their roster of problem mortgages.

That means potentially more foreclosed homes hitting the market this year that could drag down the value of neighboring homes.

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Among states with a judicial foreclosure process, foreclosure activity rose 2 percent last month from January, and climbed 24 percent from February last year, the firm said.

Foreclosure activity across states without a court-supervised process fell 5 percent in February from the previous month and declined 23 percent from a year earlier.

RealtyTrac bases foreclosure activity on filings that signal when a home is in some stage of the foreclosure process — an initial default notice, a scheduled home auction or a home repossession, which is when a property goes back to the lender.

Overall, U.S. foreclosure activity dipped 2 percent from January and was down 8 percent from February last year. Taken individually, some states registered far higher increases in foreclosure activity last month. Banks repossessed 63,834 U.S. homes last month, down 4 percent from January and a decline of 1 percent from February las