Homeowners in Tennessee may be able to breathe a sigh of relief. The numbers are in for the first quarter of 2016 and based on the continuing overall decline in foreclosures, some expert are speculating that the housing crisis is coming to an end. According to Bloomberg, March numbers showed the lowest number of properties in active foreclosure since October 2007. There were 631,000 foreclosures in March, representing a drop of 24,000.
The recession and subsequent foreclosures created a backlog for lenders that has taken a very long time for them work through. The fact that some banks are eliminating positions related to foreclosure processing shows that they expect the amount of delinquencies to continue to drop. The housing recovery has been uneven at times, evidenced by the fact that new home sales have declined for the past three months in a row. However, the overall rate of improvement and the significant drop in foreclosures appears to be promising.
In fact, MarketWatch reports that 97 percent of real estate markets that were analyzed demonstrated significantly fewer foreclosures than at the peak in 2009. In the case of some large cities such as Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta, they were found to have a rate of foreclosure lower than when the recession hit.
It appears as if the time it takes to process foreclosures is decreasing as well. The average time to foreclose was found to be 625 days, which represents a drop for the second quarter in a row. However, these times can vary significantly depending on what state you live time.
