Nevada remains among top three foreclosure states

Nevada stayed in the top three states for foreclosures in the first quarter as banks picked up the pace on default activity.

One in every 209 homes statewide was in the fore­closure process from January to March, according to a Wednesday report from Realty­Trac. That was up 8.1 percent compared with the first quarter of 2014, and double the U.S. rate of one in every 421 homes. The national rate was down 8.3 percent year over year.

Nevada ranked third for foreclosure activity after Florida, where one in 178 homes was in default, and Maryland, where one in 199 homes was in the process.

RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said fore­closure numbers in general are “continued cleanup of distress still lingering from the previous housing crisis, not the beginning of a new crisis by any means.”

In Nevada, the cleanup has been prolonged by changes in state laws, which put new administrative requirements on banks looking to foreclose.

But industry observers predicted the foreclosure pace would pick up as banks adjusted, and RealtyTrac’s numbers show that has happened.

Lenders filed 3,070 foreclosure starts in Nevada in the first quarter, up 166 percent from the first quarter of 2014, though RealtyTrac said some of the increase may be from a change in data collection methods.

The state’s foreclosure market has had ups and downs with big changes in 2011 and 2013 default laws.

Lenders in Clark County filed 3,700 notices of default in September 2013, including a one-day record of 934 notices on Sept. 30, the day before the state’s Homeowners Bill of Rights took effect and made it harder to foreclose.

Notices of default dropped to fewer than 100 a month right after the law kicked in.

Nationally, foreclosure starts dipped 14 percent in the quarter, to 152,147.

It’ll be a while before foreclosure starts translate into bank-owned sales. RealtyTrac’s data showed foreclosure completions in Nevada were down 42 percent in the quarter, to 977 sales.

The statistics match recent trends reported by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, which found that 9.3 percent of local home sales were bank-owned properties in March. That was down from 11.7 percent a year earlier.

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Find @J_Robison1 on Twitter.