A Steep Drop In NH Home Foreclosures

The big news in real estate this week is the state’s sharply declining foreclosure rate.  As NHPR’s Jon Greenberg reports, The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority counted 238 homes that went into foreclosure in July.  That’s about a 30 percent drop from June of 2011 and from July of last year. But Greenberg points out that, “one reason for the slow down is lenders are taking longer to process foreclosures.  For the housing market, that just draws out the pain of dealing with troubled properties.”

And Kathleen Callahan of the New Hampshire Business Review expands on that idea,

“The authority warned that the overall recovery could be slowed since lenders have allowed the period of delinquency prior to foreclosure to extend — in part due to delays in document processing and in part in hopes that the market will improve.

‘These conditions set the stage for a protracted period during which significant numbers of foreclosed and distressed properties will negatively influence the housing market, slowing its overall recovery.'”

The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority has a number of interesting tables illustrating the nuances of foreclosure numbers.  Take this one, which shows the percentage of home loan payments that were past due during the second quarter of 2011.   At 7.1 percent, New Hampshire’s slightly below the New England average of 7.56 percent, which in turn is a bit below the national average of 8.1 percent.

New Hampshire Housing