Home foreclosures skyrocket nationwide, and especially in Maine
With the July 31 end of a federal moratorium on home foreclosures, more properties in Maine and throughout the country are entering the foreclosure process, a new analysis has found.
In the year’s third quarter, 45,517 U.S. properties were in foreclosure, up 34% from the previous quarter and 68% from a year ago, according to ATTOM, a national real estate tracking company.
Maine recorded the 17th-highest growth in foreclosure activity of any state, according to the Q3 report, with the number of properties increasing 60.8% compared to Q2 and 27.4% over the third quarter of 2020.
There were a total of 211 Maine properties in foreclosure, or one out of every 3,520 housing units, the report said.
Among northeastern states, only Connecticut, No. 10, and New Jersey, No. 4, experienced greater increases in foreclosures during the third quarter.
The ATTOM report also showed there were a total of 19,609 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in September 2021, up 24% from August and up 102% from September 2020.
"Despite the increased level of foreclosure activity in September, we're still far below historically normal numbers," said Rick Sharga, executive vice president at RealtyTrac, an ATTOM company.
“The government and the mortgage industry have worked together to do an extraordinary job of preventing millions of unnecessary foreclosures using the foreclosure moratorium and mortgage forbearance program. But there are hundreds of thousands of borrowers scheduled to exit forbearance in the next two months, and it's possible that we might see a higher percentage of those borrowers default on their loans."
ATTOM based its report on a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing, including default notifications, auction proceedings and bank repossession. Data was collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide.
The state with the highest growth in foreclosure activity was Nevada, and the lowest growth rate was recorded in South Dakota.
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