CoreLogic, a provider of information, analytics and business services, released its National Foreclosure Report for April, which provides monthly data on completed foreclosures and the overall foreclosure inventory. According to the report, there were 66,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in April 2012 compared to 78,000 in April 2011 and 66,000 in March 2012. Since the start of the financial crisis in September 2008, there have been approximately 3.6 million completed foreclosures across the country. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure.

Approximately 1.4 million homes, or 3.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were in the national foreclosure inventory as of April 2012 compared to 1.5 million, or 3.5 percent, in April 2011 and 1.4 million, or 3.4 percent, in March 2012.

“There were more than 830,000 completed foreclosures over the past year or, in other words, one completed foreclosure for every 622 mortgaged homes,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Non-judicial foreclosure markets, like Nevada, Arizona and California, completed two and a half times as many foreclosures over the past year as judicial foreclosure states.”

“The inventory of homes in foreclosure in judicial foreclosure states is growing, but this increase is being more than offset by declining inventories in non-judicial states where the processing timelines to clear a foreclosure are shorter,” said Anand Nallathambi, chief executive officer of CoreLogic. “Nationally the inventory of homes in foreclosure decreased 0.1 percent from what it was a year ago at this time, and has leveled off over the first four months of 2012.”

Highlights as of April 2012
•  The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in April 2012 were: California (142,000), Florida (92,000), Michigan (60,000), Texas (58,000) and Georgia (57,000). These five states account for 48.8 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.
•  The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in April 2012 were: South Dakota (62), District of Columbia (162), North Dakota (541), West Virginia (598) and Hawaii (601).
•  The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Florida (12.0 percent), New Jersey (6.7 percent), Illinois (5.3 percent), Nevada (5.0 percent) and New York (5.0 percent).
•  The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory were: Wyoming (0.7 percent), Alaska (0.8 percent), North Dakota (0.9 percent), Nebraska (1.0 percent) and South Dakota (1.4 percent).