How Many Americans Have Gone Through Foreclosure?

During the Great Recession, many Americans lost their homes due to foreclosure. In fact, according to real estate data company RealtyTrac, there were 6,324,545 completed foreclosures from January 2006 to April 2016.

“It is a big number,” Daren Blomquist, Senior Vice President of RealtyTrac said in an email. “Normal would be around 250,000 bank repossessions per year. These last 10 years represented the biggest loss of home ownership and shifting of real estate wealth since the Great Depression.”

The Current Status of the Housing Market

The market has improved, but that doesn’t make it immune to foreclosures. (You can see the 10 states with the biggest foreclosure problems here.)

“The foreclosure crisis is largely behind us, although still certainly lingering in certain pockets,” Blomquist said. “Unfortunately, we are already seeing signs of another housing bubble in certain markets, so people should continue to be cautiously optimistic when it comes to the housing market.”

But Blomquist says people who can truly afford to buy a home may still benefit from it.

“Homeownership done responsibly is still one of the best ways to build wealth,” Blomquist said.

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What a Foreclosure Can Mean for You

“Foreclosure will obviously create a crater in a credit report for some time,” Troy Doucet, attorney with Doucet & Associates in Columbus, Ohio, said in an email. “However, foreclosure is not the end of the world. Those with foreclosure in their credit past will find their credit scores slowly improve as time passes. After a few years, they may even be able to buy another house.”

If you default on a loan or go through a foreclosure, it will appear on your credit report for seven years. But you can work to improve your credit score. (Consider these steps to fix your credit.) To see how your mortgage payments are affecting your credit you can take a look at your free credit report summary, updated every 14 days, on Credit.com.