A surge in lender filings last month helped send first-quarter foreclosures up 5 percent in Ohio as bank repossessions nationwide hit their highest point in at least a half-decade, according to a Thursday report from
Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, which compiles and sells foreclosure data, said Ohio logged 15,041 default notices, 7,543 auction notices and 10,637 bank repossessions in the first three months of the year. While up 5 percent from the same period in 2009, it was a 12 percent jump from the fourth quarter of last year.
Foreclosure filings in the state piled up at a rate of one for every 153 properties in the quarter. That was slightly slower than the national average of one foreclosure for every 138 houses.
Ohio’s increase in first-quarter foreclosure filings was linked to a 14 percent spike from February to March, a pattern that was playing out across much of the nation, Realty Trac CEO James Saccaccio said in the report. But this year is setting itself apart from others with the bulk of foreclosure activity taking place in bank repossessions.
“This … may be further evidence that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory that has built up over the last year as foreclosure prevention programs and processing delays slowed down the normal foreclosure time line,” Saccaccio said in a release.
RealtyTrac said 257,944 repossession notices were tracked nationwide in the first quarter, the highest total the company has recorded since it began compiling data in 2005.
California accounted for nearly a quarter of all U.S. foreclosure activity, followed by Florida and Arizona. Ohio had the ninth-worst tally of foreclosure filings in the nation, RealtyTrac reported.
In total, U.S. foreclosure activity was 16 percent ahead of the 2009 pace at the end of the first quarter
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