Highest foreclosure rates in New Jersey, Maryland and Nevada
Nationwide one in every 1,723 housing units had a foreclosure filing in April 2017.

States with the highest foreclosure rates were New Jersey (one in every 562 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Delaware (one in every 706 housing units); Maryland (one in every 776 housing units); Connecticut (one in every 956 housing units); and Illinois (one in every 1,083 housing units).

Among 217 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in April were Atlantic City, New Jersey (one in every 237 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Fayetteville, North Carolina (one in every 615 housing units); Trenton, New Jersey (one in every 620 housing units); Rockford, Illinois (one in every 668 housing units); and Philadelphia (one in every 733 housing units).

Counter to the national trend, the District of Columbia and seven states posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity, including New Jersey (up 1 percent); Connecticut (up 29 percent); and Massachusetts (up 3 percent).

"The Seattle-area economy continues to outperform the rest of the country and the housing market is going gangbusters," said Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate, covering the Seattle market, where April foreclosure activity decreased 38 percent from a year ago.. "As such, I'm not surprised that foreclosure activity continues to head towards pre-housing bubble averages. In fact, as banks continue to unwind their REO portfolios, I expect foreclosure levels in Seattle to drop even further in the coming months."

Foreclosure starts continue to track below pre-recession levels
A total of 34,085 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process in April, down 6 percent from the previous month and down 22 percent from a year ago and continuing well below the pre-recession average of more than 77,000 foreclosure starts per month between April 2005 and November 2007.

Counter to the national trend, the District of Columbia and seven states posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure starts, including Connecticut (up 40 percent); Massachusetts (up 34 percent); Alabama (up 10 percent); Missouri (up 10 percent); Oregon (up 7 percent); and Illinois (up 6 percent).

Foreclosure completions down but still above pre-recession levels
Lenders completed foreclosure (REO) on 25,990 U.S. properties in April, down 9 percent from the previous month and down 22 percent from a year ago to the lowest level since February 2015 — a 26-month (more than 2 year) low and running just above the pre-recession average of 25,796 per month between April 2005 and November 2007.

Counter to the national trend, the District of Columbia and 15 states posted year-over-year increases in REOs in April, including New Jersey (up 45 percent); Arizona (up 25 percent); Louisiana (up 2 percent); Connecticut (up 4 percent); and Oklahoma (up 7 percent).

Repeat foreclosures highest in New York City among five markets analyzed
ATTOM also released a brand-new analysis of "repeat foreclosure starts" in five markets: the five boroughs of New York City; Essex County, Miami-Dade County; Los Angeles County; and Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona.

For purposes of this analysis, a repeat foreclosures start was defined as a foreclosure start (initial publicly recorded foreclosure notice starting the foreclosure process) filed on a property address-owner last name combination in 2016 with a previous foreclosure start on the same property address-owner combination in the last 10 years.

View the full report and report methodology.

About ATTOM Data Solutions
ATTOM Data Solutions curator of the ATTOM Data Warehouse, a multi-sourced national property database that blends property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, health hazards, neighborhood characteristics and other property characteristic data for more than 150 million U.S. residential and commercial properties.