Banks took back more homes in January than in the previous month, the latest sign that foreclosures are accelerating.
Foreclosures rose 8 percent nationally last month from December, but were down 15 percent from a year earlier, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, Calif., said Thursday.
Summit County foreclosure filings dropped dramatically from December and a year ago, according to RealtyTrac.
Summit County filings in January totaled 323, down 30.8 percent from December and down 41.3 percent from January 2011. One in every 759 Summit County homes had a foreclosure filing in January, RealtyTrac reported.
January foreclosure filings in Ohio fell 4.7 percent from December and were down 6.7 percent from a year ago.
Summit County officials say RealtyTrac’s methodology overstates the actual number of homes that are foreclosed upon.
Despite the annual decrease at the national level, some states posted sharp increases compared to January 2011. In New Hampshire, foreclosures jumped 62 percent. In Massachusetts, it was 75 percent.
That trend is expected to strengthen this year in light of last week’s $25 billion settlement between the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders and 49 state attorneys general over the industry’s handling of foreclosures.
Many banks and mortgage servicers processed foreclosures without verifying documents. Some employees signed papers they hadn’t read or used fake signatures to speed foreclosures — a practice dubbed “robo-signing.”
Major banks temporarily put foreclosures on hold after the problems surfaced in the fall of 2010. Some had to refile previous cases and revisit pending cases to prevent errors. Those delays and uncertainty led to a sharp slowdown last year.
The settlement between banks and states helps clarify the rules banks must follow, said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac.
“The settlement will accelerate the foreclosures that are happening this year and it will accelerate the process of lenders catching up on the backlog … that has been building up over the last year and a half,” Blomquist said.
Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings also anticipates foreclosures will climb nationally this year.
“You probably are going to see the pace pick up as the year goes on,” said Grant Bailey, a managing director at Fitch.
RealtyTrac projects foreclosures will rise 25 percent this year to 1 million homes. Last year, lenders took back 804,000 homes.
All told, 210,941 U.S. homes received a default notice, were scheduled for auction or were repossessed by a lender in January, RealtyTrac said.
That’s up 3 percent from December, but a drop of 19 percent from January last year. The foreclosure rate translates to one in every 624 U.S. households.
Beacon Journal business writer Jim Mackinnon contributed to this report.
