LoginThere were 55,000 completed foreclosures nationwide in March 2013, a 16 percent decrease from March 2012, according to a report by CoreLogic.
A completed foreclosure occurs when a property's ownership is transferred to a new owner or the to the lender who underwrote the original mortgage. If the the lender ends up with the property it is moved into the lender's real estate owned inventory, according to the source.
Month-over-month completed foreclosures were on the rise, up from rose 52,000 in February 2013, an increase of 6 percent.
"In March, completed foreclosures were down 52 percent from the peak in 2010, and almost all of the top 100 major metropolitan areas have declining foreclosure rates," said CoreLogic's chief economist Mark Fleming. "The foreclosure rate nationally is down 23 percent relative to a year ago, signaling continued reduction in the stock of distressed assets."
The five states with the highest annual completed foreclosure rates by the end of March 2013 accounted for almost half of the nation's total bank repossessions. Florida was the only state with more than 100,000 completed foreclosures.
With only 81, South Dakota had the nation's fewest foreclosures. The District of Columbia,North Dakota and West Virginia were the remaining states in the bottom four.