Foreclosure Activity Picks Up, But No Tsunami

Foreclosure activity ticked up in Q3 for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest data from ATTOM Data Solutions…(ATTOM)

• Q3: There were 45,517 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in Q3 of 2021 a 34% jump from Q2 and a jump of 68% from a year ago.

• SEPTEMBER: Saw a total of 19,609 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings, a 24% increase from the previous month and up a whopping 102% from September 2020.

NOTE: Lenders started the foreclosure process on 25,209 U.S. properties in Q3 2021. This is a 32% increase from Q2 and a 67% jump from a year ago. It is also the first double digit quarterly percent increase since 2014.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president at RealtyTrac, notes that despite the big percentage jumps, September and Q3 still remain historically low…

• “September foreclosure actions were almost 70 percent lower than they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in September of 2019, and Q3 foreclosure activity was 60 percent lower than the same quarter that year. Even with similar increases in foreclosures over the next few months, we’ll end the year significantly below what we’d see in a normal housing market.”

Not only are foreclosures relatively flat, the eviction tsunami that so many feared turned out to be all just a figment of their imagination…(Wall Street Journal)

So what happened to the eviction tsunami? Actually, experts believe there are two main reasons for the absence of a crisis…

• Rental-assistance is finally being paid out. Doug Bibby, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council said that 20% of the $46.5 billion in available federal rent aid has been approved or paid to landlords and tenants.

• State and local governments have law powers. This might shock some, but it turns out that local and state governments have the powers to make laws and there’s will probably be constitutional. The Journal reports that “nearly half of renters nationally still lived in areas with eviction bans or other pandemic eviction protections after the federal ban ended, according to the Urban Institute, a Washington housing think tank.”

It turns out ending an unconstitutional federal law allowed other federal programs to work and for constitutional local and state laws to work as well. Amazing