Nevada’s foreclosure rate is back to No. 1 in the nation

A foreclosed home is shown in a neighborhood near Tenaya Way and Russell Road on Thursday, June 25, 2015.

For the first time in almost a year, Nevada is back on top of America’s foreclosure heap as lenders repossess a rising number of homes.

One in every 507 homes statewide received a foreclosure-related filing last month, up 16 percent from July and 4 percent from August 2014, according to a new report from RealtyTrac.

Nevada’s foreclosure rate was highest in the country last month and more than double the U.S. average. One in every 1,205 homes nationally had a foreclosure filing in August, down 12 percent from July and 6 percent year-over-year.

RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif., counts default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions for the report.

It was the Silver State’s first time in the dubious No. 1 spot since September 2014, RealtyTrac said.

Nevada, however, is no stranger there. Its foreclosure rate was highest in the country for more than five years until March 2012, a sign of how bad things got after the once-booming real estate market collapsed last decade and the economy tanked.

The past few years, Nevada has returned at times to the No. 1 spot in RealtyTrac’s foreclosure rankings and consistently been one of the hardest-hit states each month.

Among metro areas, Las Vegas — which comprises the bulk of Nevada’s population — tied with Rockford, Ill., and Fayetteville, N.C., for the eighth-highest foreclosure rate in the country last month, with one in every 565 homes receiving a filing.

Atlantic City, N.J., pummeled by a rash of casino closures — four of its 12 casinos shut down last year, wiping out a reported 8,000 jobs — was No. 1, with one in every 307 homes receiving a foreclosure filing in August.

Nevada was hit by a wave of repossessions last month. Creditors seized 645 homes statewide, up 54 percent from July and more than 230 percent from August 2014, RealtyTrac reported.

Most of the repos — 523 — were in the Las Vegas area.

Lenders have been ramping up foreclosures in Southern Nevada this year, seizing homes that in many cases likely had been in default — and possibly empty and in disrepair — for a long time.

At first glance, the rise in repossessions seems like a return to the darkest days of the recession, when thousands of people a month were losing their homes in the valley.

But industry pros have said that banks — perhaps pushed by a Nevada Supreme Court ruling last fall that upheld homeowners associations’ repo powers — are starting to clear the pipeline that filled during the recession, when new laws drastically slowed the foreclosure process on delinquent borrowers by requiring more paperwork from banks.

Eli Segall can be reached at 702-259-2309 or [email protected]. Follow Eli on Twitter at twitter.com/eli_segall.

Tags: News , Business
Real Estate

Share