ATTOM 2022 year-end report showed foreclosure filings up 115 percent from 2021 but down 34 percent from 2019.

ATTOM said 2022 foreclosure filings more than doubled from 2021 but remained well below pre-pandemic rates. The company’s Year-End 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report showed foreclosure filings on 324,237 U.S. properties, up 115 percent from 2021 but down 34 percent from 2019, before the pandemic shook up the market. Foreclosure filings in 2022 were also down 89 percent from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010. Properties with foreclosure filings in 2022 represented 0.23 percent of all U.S. housing units, up slightly from 0.11 percent in 2021, but down from 0.36 percent in 2019 and down from a peak of 2.23 percent in 2010. “Eighteen months after the end of the government’s foreclosure moratorium, and with less than 5 percent of the 8.4 million borrowers who entered the CARES Act forbearance program remaining, foreclosure activity remains significantly lower than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. “It seems clear that government and mortgage industry efforts during the pandemic, coupled with a strong economy, have helped prevent millions of unnecessary foreclosures.” The report also noted for December 2022, 30,822, properties had foreclosure filings, up by less than 1 percent from the previous month but up by 72 percent from a year ago. Lenders repossessed 42,854 properties through foreclosures in 2022, up 67 percent from 2021 but down 70 percent from 2019 (143,955) and down 96 percent from a peak of 1,050,500 in 2010. “Unlike foreclosure activity during the Great Recession, the majority of homes in foreclosure are not being repossessed by lenders,” Sharga noted. “Our recent homeowner equity report shows that 93 percent of borrowers in foreclosure today have positive equity, which they appear to be leveraging in order to avoid a foreclosure by refinancing their mortgage or selling the property at a profit. It seems likely that this is a trend that will continue in 2023.”

Source: ATTOM