COVID-19 Foreclosure Filings Are Rising Rapidly Across The United States Despite Federal Moratorium

COVID-19 Foreclosure filings climbed 20% in October since September. The COVID-19 pandemic remains the biggest threat to homeownership since the 2008 financial crisis. The ATTOM Data Solutions reports state foreclosure filings included default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president of RealtyTrac stated:

It’s a little surprising to see foreclosure activity increasing in spite of the various foreclosure moratoria that are in place. It’s likely that many of these properties were already in the early stages of default prior to the pandemic which makes them candidates for expedited foreclosure actions.

Some surveys have also suggested that many struggling homeowners are unaware of foreclosure moratoriums. Borrowers must contact their lender to initiate a forbearance or any other type of assistance.

The metropolitan areas seeing the largest increases in foreclosure starts last month were New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston.

Shagra also said:

It’s probably not a surprise that almost all of the metro areas where foreclosure activity increased on a month-over-month basis are also places where unemployment rates are higher than the national average, and in many cases have been hot spots of COVID-19 infections. Still, it’s important to keep the numbers in context—even with these increases, overall foreclosure actions are still below last year’s levels by about 80%.

The states with the highest foreclosure rates nationwide are South Carolina, Nebraska, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida. Broken out by metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates in October were Peoria, Ill.; Champaign, Ill.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Houma, La.

A total of 6,042 U.S. properties entered the foreclosure process in October.

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