Source: Columbia Business First
RealtyTrac Inc. on Thursday cautioned that communities should brace for a surge in foreclosures in the coming few months following a drop in mortgage failures nationally in January, including in Ohio.
The Irvine, Calif.-based company, which compiles and sells foreclosure data, said it tracked 11,105 default, auction and bank repossession notices on properties in Ohio last month. That represented one filing for every 457 households, below the national ratio of one foreclosure for every 409 households.
Ohio foreclosure activity fell 5 percent from December but dipped less than 1 percentage point from a year earlier. National foreclosure activity, meanwhile, tumbled 10 percent from December but surged 15 percent from January 2009, RealtyTrac said.
Ohio wasn’t among the 10 states with the highest foreclosure rates in January, ranking 14th, but the volume of foreclosure filings was the ninth-highest in the nation. California, Florida and Arizona, where housing development exploded in the late 1990s and earlier this decade, continued to account for more than 40 percent of foreclosures among the states.
RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said last month’s activity – a drop in filings following a December surge – mimicked the direction of foreclosures a year ago.
“If history repeats itself, we will see a surge in the numbers over the next few months as lenders foreclose on delinquent loans where neither the existing loan modification programs or the new short sale and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure alternatives works,” Saccacio said in a release.
