In the month of April, 40,000 U.S. home foreclosures were completed, down 1.1% month over month and down 19.8% from a total of 50,000 in April 2014, according CoreLogic. The research firm also notes that the current foreclosure inventory totals 1.4% of all homes with a mortgage in the United States, down from 1.8% in April of 2014.

The number of U.S. homes currently in some stage of foreclosure totals 521,000, compared with 694,000 in April 2014. That represents a decline in the national foreclosure inventory of 24.9%, compared with April a year ago.

The four states and the District of Columbia with the largest foreclosed inventory as a percentage of mortgaged properties are New Jersey (5.1%), New York (3.8%), Florida (3.1%), Hawaii (2.6%) and D.C. (2.5%). The five states with the lowest inventories of foreclosed properties are Alaska (0.3%), Nebraska (0.4%), North Dakota (0.4%), Colorado (0.4%) and Minnesota (0.5%).

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the past 12 months were Florida (106,000), Michigan (49,000), Texas (33,000), Ohio (28,000) and Georgia (27,000). The five states with the fewest foreclosures in the prior 12 months through April were South Dakota (20), District of Columbia (95), North Dakota (318), West Virginia (475) and Wyoming (498).

CoreLogic’s CEO said:

Despite a slow and steady improvement in most housing market fundamentals, too many families remain in default of their mortgage obligations. The percent of homeowners with a mortgage that have missed three or more monthly payments or are in foreclosure proceedings dropped to 3.6 percent in our April data; while well below the record peak of nearly 9 percent and the lowest in more than seven years, it remains about double the pre-2007 rate.

The five metropolitan areas with the largest inventories of foreclosed properties are New York City (4.0%), Tampa (3.9%), Orlando (2.8%), Chicago (2.0%) and Baltimore (1.9%).

According to CoreLogic, the current foreclosure rate of 1.4% is the lowest since March of 2008, and the foreclosure inventory has declined every month for the past 42 months.

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