Foreclosures are dropping, in Cleveland and most everywhere

Foreclosure filings are down everywhere, according to new data from real estate analytics firm ATTOM, though Cleveland and Ohio continue to have among the highest rates among cities and states nationwide.

The headline numbers, via ATTOM’s Year-End 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report:

• Foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 151,153 U.S. properties in 2021, down 29% from 2020 and down 95% from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010, to the lowest level since tracking began in 2005.

• The 151,153 properties with foreclosure filings in 2021 represented 0.11% of all U.S. housing units, down from 0.16% in 2020 and down from a peak of 2.23% in 2010.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president at RealtyTrac, an ATTOM company, said in a statement, “Government and mortgage industry efforts have prevented millions of unnecessary foreclosures, and while it’s likely that we’ll see a slight increase in the first quarter, we probably won’t see foreclosure activity back to normal levels before the end of 2022.”

Here’s one piece of good news when it comes to foreclosures locally: ATTOM noted that among metro areas of greater than 1 million people, Cleveland, at 42%, saw the fourth-largest decline in foreclosures in 2021, trailing only Philadelphia (down 56%), Washington, D.C. (52%) and Charlotte (51%).

Even so, Cleveland still had the highest foreclosure rate among large metros, at 0.37% of housing units with a foreclosure filing.

States with the highest foreclosure rates in 2021 were Nevada (0.26% of housing units with a foreclosure filing), Illinois (0.23%) and Florida (0.21%). Ohio was sixth-highest, at 0.18%.