A total of 224,451 foreclosure filings were reported in October, up 94 percent from the 115,568 filings reported in the same period a year ago, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
The number of filings were up just two percent from September, with a rate of one foreclosure filing for every 555 households in the United States.
Foreclosure filings have leveled off since August, a trend Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s vice president for marketing, likened to the lag time associated with interest-rate resets.
More importantly, bank repossessions were also on the rise, with that type of notice making up 35 percent of all foreclosure filings in October.
“About 35 percent of the total filings we collected this month were notices of bank repossession,” Sharga said in a release. “Historically, on average, that number is more like 20 percent.”
In Ohio, 45 percent of all foreclosure filings during the month were notices of bank repossessions, while repossessions represented 46 percent of all filings in Missouri and 37 percent in Michigan.
Irvine-based RealtyTrac has been criticized for counting multiple filings, including filings for default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.
But for these unlucky homeowners, the data seems to indicate that the problem is quite real.
Nevada continued to lead the way with the highest foreclosure rate for the tenth month in a row, while California reported the most foreclosure filings of any state.
California reported 50,401 foreclosure filings, down two percent from September but more than triple the number from October of last year.
RealtyTrac said the number of foreclosures in the state was driven by adjustable-rate mortgages resetting to higher monthly mortgage payments.
In total, 45 states saw a rise in foreclosure filings over the same period last year.