CoreLogic recently released its May National Foreclosure Report with a supplement featuring quarterly shadow inventory data as of April 2013.
According to CoreLogic analysis, there were 52,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in May 2013, down from 71,000 in May 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 27 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures increased 3.5 percent, from 50,000 in April 2013 to the May level of 52,000.
Current residential shadow inventory as of April 2013 was under 2 million units, representing a supply of 5.3 months. The overall shadow inventory is down 34 percent from its peak in 2010, when it reached 3 million homes, and down 18 percent from a year ago, when it was at 2.4 million.
As a basis of comparison to the 52,000 completed foreclosures reported for May 2013, prior to the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.4 million completed foreclosures across the country.
As of May 2013, approximately 1.0 million homes in the U.S. were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared to 1.4 million in May 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 29 percent. Month over month, the foreclosure inventory was down 3.3 percent from April 2013 to May 2013. The foreclosure inventory as of May 2013 represented 2.6 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared to 3.5 percent in May 2012.
