Foreclosures up on Long Island, report says
Of all homes with outstanding mortgage loans on Long Island, nearly 6.6 percent were in foreclosure in April 2012, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to April 2011. Credit: iStock
Long Island’s foreclosure rate ticked higher in April, compared with the same period last year, a new report found.
Of all homes with outstanding mortgage loans, nearly 6.6 percent were in foreclosure, an increase of 0.8 percentage point compared with April 2011. Then, almost 5.8 percent of homes were in foreclosure, according to CoreLogic, which collects data from mortgage lenders.
In a further sign that many homeowners were struggling to pay their bills, the percentage of Long Island mortgage loans that were at least 90 days delinquent rose slightly during the same period, from nearly 10 percent to 10.4 percent, CoreLogic found.
Across New York, more than 4.8 percent of homes were in the foreclosure process in April, a rise of 0.7 percentage point compared to the previous April, according to the data provider.
The upticks on the Island and across the state came even as the national foreclosure rate fell to 3.4 percent in April, a very slight decline compared with the same period last year. New York requires lenders to obtain court approval before foreclosing, a mandate that aims to protect homeowners from improper foreclosure but also imposes delays. It takes an average of 1,056 days -- nearly 3 years -- to foreclose on a home in New York, according to data provider RealtyTrac.
Earlier this month, RealtyTrac reported that the number of new foreclosure filings spiked by 50 percent in Suffolk County and 34 percent in Nassau County in May, compared with the same period in 2011. Local real estate observers expect a wave of distressed home sales to put a damper on housing prices for about the next 18 months.
