Foreclosure Starts Down Dramatically In August

ForeclosureRadar released its Foreclosure Report for August on Monday, revealing that foreclosure starts fell dramatically during the month.

The company's coverage area includes counties in California, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. In all states except Washington, foreclosure starts either fell drastically or stayed fairly flat month-over-month, with Oregon seeing an 80.6 percent drop in starts. In Washington, starts were up 34.9 percent.

ForeclosureRadar said the monthly decline in starts is even more significant when taken with the fact that August had more business days (23 days) than July (21 days).

While foreclosure sales increased 23.7 percent month-over-month in California, the increased number of business days helped flatten the daily average increase to 2.2 percent over July.

Sales in most other states either dropped or increased marginally, with Nevada posting the largest decrease (18.1 percent). Washington led in sales, reporting a 36.5 percent increase.

Time to foreclose changed little in all states, with Nevada showing the largest increase (up 8.9 percent increase to 512 days) and Arizona posting the only decrease (down 3.7 percent to 131 days). While Washington reported huge leaps in foreclosure starts and sales, the state remained completely flat in time to foreclose at 102 days.

ForeclosureRadar CEO Sean O'Toole said the drop in starts should put to rest any reports about another wave of foreclosure sales in the near future.

"We continue to see reports that there will be a wave of foreclosure sales after the election or at the start of the year," O'Toole said. "The lack of foreclosure starts this month puts a nail in the coffin of this theory. There will be no wave of foreclosures for at least five months."

"The good news for investors and first-time buyers is that foreclosure sales have at least remained flat, continuing to provide some opportunities in the meantime,"" he continued.