24/7 Wall St.

In the month of July, 34,000 U.S. home foreclosures were completed, down 3.9% month over month and down 16.5% from a total of 41,000 in July 2015, according to CoreLogic. The research firm notes that the current foreclosure inventory totals 0.9% of all homes with a mortgage in the United States, down from 1.3% in July of last year.

The number of U.S. homes currently in some stage of foreclosure totals approximately 355,000, compared with 501,000 in July 2015. That represents a decline in the national foreclosure inventory of 29.1% compared with July 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 (3.3%), New York (3.0%), Hawaii (1.8%), Maine (1.9%) and D.C. (1.8%). The five states with the lowest inventories of foreclosed properties are Colorado (0.3%), Minnesota (0.3%), Utah (0.3%), Arizona (0.3%) and Alaska (0.3%).

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures in the past 12 months were Florida (57,000), Michigan (45,000), Texas (27,000), Ohio (23,000) and California (21,000). The five with the fewest foreclosures in the prior 12 months through July were District of Columbia (207), North Dakota (324), West Virginia (488), Alaska (635) and Montana (700).

CoreLogic CEO Anand Nallathambi said:

Foreclosure rates declined year over year in all states except North Dakota, which experienced a 6 percent increase in its foreclosure inventory related to the drop in energy-related jobs. Importantly, judicial states like New Jersey and New York have continued to work through their large inventory of homes in foreclosure proceedings.

Of the 10 largest U.S. metro areas, the foreclosure inventory was highest in the New York area, at 2.8%. The Miami metro area’s foreclosure inventory totaled 2.3%, and the Las Vegas and Chicago areas had the third-highest total at 1.3%. The lowest totals were posted in the San Francisco (0.1%) area and in Denver (0.2%).

A total of 19 states posted year-over-year declines of more than 30% in foreclosure inventory for the month of July. Nevada’s foreclosure inventory has fallen 39.9% in the past 12 months and Minnesota’s has dropped by 39.1%.

According to CoreLogic, the current foreclosure rate of 0.9% is the same as the August 2007 rate and the foreclosure inventory has declined every month for the past 57 months. Before the collapse in the housing market in 2007, the average number of foreclosures completed in a month was 21,000.