According to Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks the housing market, things are improving in the state of Massachusetts. The number of foreclosures initiated by lenders in January dropped to the lowest level in more than a year.
That said, however, there are still problems. The number of foreclosure deeds, which is one of the final steps in the actual foreclosure process, increased to the highest level for the month of January since 2006.
There are two reasons for these differing sets of figures. According to the CEO of the Warren Group, Timothy M. Warren, chief executive of Warren Group, said the decrease in new foreclosures could be due to the Obama administration’s work to get lenders to increase loan modifications. The increase in deeds, however, is probably due to a Massachusetts Land Court decision last year that "temporarily" slowed foreclosures, and artificially depressed 2009 figures. In other words: they are catching up.
January 2010 marked only the second time since February 2009 that monthly petition filings fell below 2,000. There were 1,874 petitions to foreclose in January, a 9 percent decrease from the 2,060 filed in December and a 4.4 percent drop year-over-year. A petition to foreclose is typically filed when a homeowner is 90 days behind on payments.
However, as noted, also in January, 1,061 deeds for foreclosure were registered in Massachusetts. That is an increase when compared year-over-year with 2009. The Warren Group noted that the numbers are still at "high levels."
Additionally, almost 28,000 Massachusetts homeowners last year received foreclosure petitions. That was 28.1 percent higher than in 2008.
Written by Michael Santo
HULIQ.com
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