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Paperwork Problems in Judicial Foreclosure States Continue to Cause Delays;
California, Arizona, Nevada Cities Dominate Top 20 Metro Foreclosure Rates

IRVINE, Calif. – July 28, 2011 – RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its Midyear 2011 Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report, which shows that foreclosure activity decreased on a year-over-year basis in 178 out of the nation’s 211 metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more. The report also shows that all top 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of the year posted decreasing foreclosure activity compared to the first half of 2010.

California, Nevada and Arizona cities accounted for all top 10 metro foreclosure rates and 15 of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates in the first half of the year. Only one Florida metro area posted a foreclosure rate among the top 20 — Cape Coral-Fort Myers at No. 12 — in sharp contrast to the first half of 2010, when Florida cities accounted for nine of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates nationwide.

Also posting foreclosure rates ranking among the top 20 were Boise City-Nampa, Idaho, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, Ga., Greeley, Colo., and Salt Lake City, Utah.

“Foreclosure activity continued to slow in the first half of 2011, especially in the most foreclosure-saturated markets and in markets where the judicial foreclosure process is used,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “The 20 metro areas with the biggest year-over-year decreases in foreclosure activity were all in states with judicial foreclosure processes — New York, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

“These dramatic decreases indicate the foreclosure pipeline continues to be clogged in many local markets across the country, sometimes by a glut of already-foreclosed properties that are not selling quickly, sometimes by a mountain of improperly filed foreclosures that are blocking the inflow of new foreclosure filings — and sometimes by both.”

Top 10 metro foreclosure rates
Las Vegas-Paradise continued to post the nation’s highest metro foreclosure rate, with one in every 19 housing units (5.36 percent) receiving a foreclosure filing during the first half of 2011 — nearly six times the national average. A total of 43,944 Las Vegas properties received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period, a decrease of 18 percent from the previous six months and also an 18 percent decrease from the first half of 2010.

Reno-Sparks was another Nevada metro area with a foreclosure rate ranking among the top 10 in the first half of 2011. One in every 34 housing units (2.96 percent) in the Reno-Sparks area received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period, the nation’s seventh highest metro foreclosure rate.

Despite a decrease in foreclosure activity from both the previous six months and the first half of 2010, the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz., metro area posted the nation’s second highest metro foreclosure rate during the first half of 2011, up from the seventh highest metro foreclosure rate in the first half of 2010. A total of 60,985 Phoenix properties received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period, a decrease of 8 percent from the previous six months and a decrease of nearly 17 percent from the first six months of 2010.

Seven California metro areas posted foreclosure rates ranking among the nation’s top 10, led by Modesto at No. 3 with one in every 30 housing units (3.32 percent) receiving a foreclosure filing. Other California cities in the top 10 were Stockton at No. 4 (3.24 percent); Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario at No. 5 (3.21 percent); Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 6 (3.09 percent); Bakersfield at No. 8 (2.78 percent); Merced at No. 9 (2.78 percent); and Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville at No. 10 (2.53 percent).

Trends in 20 largest metro areas
All but one of the nation’s 20 most-populated metro areas documented year-over-year decreases in foreclosure activity. Seattle was the only exception with a nearly 10 percent increase in foreclosure activity from the first half of 2010. With one in every 98 housing units (1.03 percent) received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period, Seattle’s foreclosure rate ranked No. 57 among all metro areas, up from a No. 97 ranking in the first half of 2010.

Seattle’s rise in the rankings was the biggest jump among the 20 largest metro areas, followed by Houston, up from a No. 109 ranking in the first half of 2010 to a No. 91 ranking in the first half of 2011, and Minneapolis, up from a No. 79 ranking in the first half of 2010 to a No. 64 ranking in the first half of 2011.

A 74 percent year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity helped push Baltimore’s foreclosure rate ranking from No. 83 in the first half of 2010 to No. 182 in the first half of 2011 — the biggest drop in rankings among the nation’s 20 largest metro areas. That was followed by Washington, D.C., down from a No. 67 ranking in the first half of 2010 to a No. 131 ranking in the first half of 2011, and Boston, down from a No. 120 ranking in the first half of 2010 to a No. 158 ranking in the first half of 2011.

Report methodology
The RealtyTrac Midyear U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the RealtyTrac database during the first six months of the year. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the six-month period may have been recorded in previous months. Data is collected from more than 2,200 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. RealtyTrac’s report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). For the midyear report, if more than one foreclosure document is received for a property during the six-month period, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The midyear report checks if the same type of document was filed against a property previous to the six-month period. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state where the property is located, the report does not count the property in the current midyear.

About RealtyTrac Inc.
RealtyTrac (http://www.realtytrac.com/) is the leading online marketplace of foreclosure properties, with more than 2 million default, auction and bank-owned listings from over 2,200 U.S. counties, along with detailed