Foreclosure activity— a measure of the actual number of foreclosure filings reported on every distressed property in a given year—jumped 75-percent in 2007 when compared to the previous year, according to RealtyTrac’s latest Foreclosure Market Report.
RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for properties in foreclosure, said the United States recorded 2,203,295 foreclosure filings in 2007. The company elaborated on these findings by saying these foreclosure filings are related to 1,285,873 specific properties.
In just the month of December, RealtyTrac recorded 215,749 foreclosure filings across the nation—a 97-percent increase when compared to December of 2006. And when compared to November of 2007, the United States experienced another slight increase in overall foreclosure filings last month.

“The year ended with a monthly increase of seven-percent in December, making it the fifth straight month with more than 200,000 foreclosure filings reported and giving the fourth quarter the highest quarterly total we’ve seen since we began issuing our report in January 2005,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “It also pushed the foreclosure filing total for 2007 well over two million. And while filings were up 75-percent, the number of properties in some stage of foreclosure was up 79-percent, indicating that some properties may have just entered the initial stage of foreclosure in 2007 and could be going through the rest of the foreclosure process in 2008—unless lender and government intervention efforts begin to gain more traction.”
RealtyTrac also elaborated on how individual states and regions are faring when it comes to distressed properties. Using calculations based on a particular state’s percentage of homes in foreclosure, RealtyTrac determined that the state of Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate last year, with 3.4-percent of its households entering some stage of foreclosure during 2007. RealtyTrac says Nevada’s foreclosure rate in December was three times the national average, while Florida and Michigan ranked second and third in the nation, respectively, for their foreclosure rates.
When measuring overall foreclosure filings, RealtyTrac ranked California at the top of the list with the state recording 481,392 foreclosure filings on 249,513 California properties last year. In addition, Florida ranked second in the nation by recording 279,325 foreclosure filings on 165,291 properties, and Ohio ranked third with 153,196 filings on 89,979 properties.