Nationally, foreclosures are at a five-year low. That’s not the case in Connecticut, according to RealtyTrac, which reports 34 percent increase in foreclosures from the previous. The real estate information company attributes the increase to Connecticut’s court-based foreclosure process.
Twenty-five other states share a similar judicial foreclosure process, and thirteen of those bucked the national trend and saw more foreclosures.
Foreclosure filings totaled 180,427 in the U.S. in September, down 7 percent from August and 16 percent from September 2011. The last time the foreclosure rate was so low was in July 2007.
“We’ve been waiting for the other foreclosure shoe to drop since late 2010, when questionable foreclosure practices slowed activity to a crawl in many areas, but that other shoe is instead being carefully lowered to the floor and therefore making little noise in the housing market — at least at a national level,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, in a written statement.
He added, “Make no mistake, however, the other shoe is dropping quite loudly in certain states, primarily those where foreclosure activity was held back the most last year.”
Connecticut recently won a $1.5 billion settlement from banks, and the money is earmarked to go to people who had their homes foreclosed.
