COSHOCTON — Foreclosures in Ohio and across the United States hit their highest levels since the start of the pandemic, after foreclosure moratoriums expired.
In January, 23,204 U.S. properties were filed for foreclosure, up 139% from a year ago when moratoriums were in effect, according to real estate information service Attom Data Solutions. .
Foreclosures remain historically low, even below the low rates of two years ago before the pandemic.
“The increased level of foreclosure activity in January was no surprise,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Attom subsidiary RealtyTrac.
“Foreclosures typically slow down during the holidays in November and December and pick up after the first of the year,” he continued. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau expired at the end of December.
Attom counts foreclosure lawsuits, sheriff’s sales and bank foreclosures in its foreclosure tally. Nationally, lenders repossessed 4,784 properties in January, up 235% from a year earlier, according to Attom.
For Coshocton County, there were three sheriff’s sales and one bank repossession in January, compared to just one sheriff’s sale the previous January. Coshocton County has a population of 36,585 with 16,455 housing units.
Carly Thompson of HER Realtors said they don’t really go after foreclosures, but it wasn’t uncommon for buyers more than two years ago to bring foreclosures to a realtor’s attention. they saw. Since then, it has become rare. Thompson had a foreclosure listing for the past year and another agent showed a buyer two foreclosure properties about three months ago.
While the moratorium on foreclosures is one reason they’ve become rare, Thompson thinks the current housing market is another. Homes sell soon after they come on the market and often above the asking price. Thompson doesn’t have data to back it up, but she thinks when people hit a snag, they look to sell the house themselves before it reaches the foreclosure process.
“The unsellables sell out,” Thompson said. “The high of the high and the low of the low, in terms of the market, all sell.”
Several state and federal lockdown restrictions put in place during the pandemic have kept lockdown numbers unusually low for most of the past 18 months. The latest restrictions, imposed by the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, expired on December 31.
Sharga noted that although the numbers are growing, they are still modest by historical standards.
“It’s very important to keep these numbers in context,” he said in a press release.
“Foreclosure completions are still well below normal levels – less than half the number in January 2020 before the pandemic was declared, and about 60% below the number of foreclosure completions in 2019,” a- he continued. “We are likely to continue to see significant year-on-year percentage increases for the remainder of this year, but it is also likely that lockdown activity will remain below historically normal levels until the end of the year. end of 2022.”
