Report: Foreclosures Return To Pre-Recession Levels

A new report finds 92,000 California properties received foreclosure filings in 2015. That was the lowest annual total since 2006.

Daren Blomquist with research firm RealtyTrac says 2015 was a landmark year.

“California foreclosure activity really returned to what I would consider normal levels consistent with what we were seeing before the recession,” says Blomquist.

Blomquist says the state’s overall foreclosure rate in 2015 declined by 15 percent from the previous year. And it was down more than 80 percent from the peak foreclosure year of 2010.

However, Blomquist says one stage of the foreclosure process – bank repossessions – actually went up by 11 percent last year.

“There is still this long tail of distress leftover from the last housing crisis that banks are dealing with and still cleaning up," Blomquist explains. "But even with that increase, the overall foreclosure activity is really back to that prerecession level.”

California had the 22^nd highest foreclosure rate in 2015.

New Jersey led the country, followed by: Florida, Maryland and Nevada.

In the Sacramento region, about 7,000 properties received foreclosure filings in 2015; down 11 percent from the previous year. Blomquist says the rate of all housing units with a foreclosure filing was 0.81 percent.

"That is right on par with what we saw back in 2006, it was 0.82 percent," says Blomquist. "So we're really right at where we were in Sacramento in 2006 before the crisis hit and back to what I would consider normal housing levels."

The data also show Sacramento area foreclosure activity in 2015 was down 84 percent from the peak foreclosure year of 2010. Meanwhile in Stockton, foreclosure activity between 2014 and 2015 decreased by 8 percent.

In more real estate news - Sacramento area housing data released Wednesday show sales activity was up in December, but the inventory of homes for sale was down.

The Sacramento Association of Realtors says sales volume went up by 30 percent from November, while the number of homes on the market decreased by 18 percent.

Meanwhile, the median sales price increased by 2 percent in December to $297,000.