Foreclosures down in Ocean State
The number of foreclosure notices filed in Rhode Island in January declined almost 13 percent compared with a year earlier. According to a report released last Thursday by RealtyTrac, one out of every 696 homes in Rhode Island received a foreclosure notice in January filings are also 5% lower than December. Nationally, one in every 409 homes received a foreclosure notice in January, up 15 percent from a year earlier but down 10 percent from December, RealtyTrac said.
According to RealtyTrac Chief Executive James J. Saccacio January’s numbers are very similar to a year ago a double-digit jump in December followed by a 10 percent drop in January. “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 work,” he said.
This comes on some the heels of some promising end of year statistics, overall foreclosure filings in Rhode Island decreased 23 percent in 2009 compared with the prior year.
This Week’s Real Estate Insight:
While we still have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Rhode Island does seem to be bucking the trends for foreclosure filings. Nationally, Rhode Island accounted for less than 1 percent of the foreclosure filings reported nationwide in 2009 and total U.S. activity increased more than 21 percent over the level reported for all of 2008.