Bucking two-year trend, Middlesex foreclosures drop 5%

BasicGov via Flickr

Write a Comment

By Sam Bonacci

While foreclosures overall in Massachusetts hit their 28th month of increases in June, Middlesex County reserved that trend and posted a year-over-year decline of 5.1 percent.

Much like the rest of the state overall, Worcester County saw year-over-year growth in foreclosure petitions and deeds, with the number of petitions climbing by 32.6 percent in June to 179 and the number of deeds hitting 45.8 percent at 121, according to Boston real estate data provider The Warren Group. Foreclosure petitions mark the start of the foreclosure process while foreclosure deeds mark the end.

While Middlesex County bucked the state’s trend and posted a year-over-year decline of 5.1 percent in June petitions to 130, it did have a relatively low increase in the number of foreclosure deeds to 13.6 percent, or 50, according to The Warren Group.

Massachusetts continues to clear out a backlog of foreclosures from the system and is likely to continue doing so through the end of the year, tThe Warren Group said. Lenders filed 1,002 petitions to foreclose in June, compared with 886 filed in June of last year. There have been 6,616 petitions filed year to date in Massachusetts, a 24.4 percent year-over-year increase from last June.

Foreclosure deeds were also up for the state in June by 15.8 percent year-over-year with 470 filed. There have been 2,872 foreclosure deeds in Massachusetts year to date, a 41.5 percent increase from the same stretch in 2015, according to the group.