Mortgage foreclosure, delinquency rates fall

Foreclosure and mortgage delinquency rates fell in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City in March compared with the same month of 2013, according to CoreLogic of Irvine, Calif.

The rate of Cedar Rapids area foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans was 1.25 percent for March, a decline of 0.74 percent compared with 1.99 percent in March 2013.

Foreclosure activity in Cedar Rapids also was lower than the national foreclosure rate, which was 1.86 percent in March. That compares with 2.85 percent in the same month last year.

CoreLogic data showed 2.9 percent of Cedar Rapids mortgage loans were 90 days or more delinquent in March, compared with 3.4 percent for the same period last year.

The rate of Iowa City area foreclosures was 0.75 percent in March, a decrease of 0.24 percent compared with March 2013 when the rate was 0.99 percent.

Data showed 1.61 percent of mortgage loans in Iowa City were 90 days or more delinquent in March, compared with 1.87 percent for the same period last year.

Iowa's foreclosure rate was 1.19 percent in March, down 0.73 percent from 1.92 percent in March 2013.

CoreLogic said 46,000 foreclosures were completed nationally in April, down 18 percent from 56,000 in April 2013. Before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month between 2000 and 2006.

Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been some 5 million completed foreclosures across the country.

'Over the last 12 months, completed foreclosures fell to 599,000, the lowest level since the Great Recession began in 2007,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic. 'At the current pace of completed foreclosures, and given the current foreclosure inventory, it will take 14 months to move all of the foreclosed inventory through the pipeline.”