Foreclosure Activity Drops 29 Percent in First Half

Overall, the number of homeowners who received some form of foreclosure actions – default or auction sale notices and repossessions – during the first six months of the year slipped to just more than 1.17 million, down 25 percent from the previous half and 29 percent from the same half in 2010, according to the latest statistics from RealtyTrac. During the time period, one in every 111 homes in the U.S. received some sort of action.

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“It would be nice to report that foreclosure activity is dropping as a result of improvements in the economy or the housing market,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Unfortunately, with unemployment rates inching back up, consumer confidence weak and home sales and prices continuing to languish, this doesn’t appear to be the case.”

Meanwhile, June saw filings rise nearly 4 percent over the previous month to 222,740, the report said. However, this was also down 29 percent from the number of filings in the previous year.

Many states imposed halts on all foreclosure processing in the wake of the robosigning scandal that came to light late last year, and a large number of lenders did so voluntarily as well.

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