Worcester County foreclosure filings up 66% in February

PHOTO/Michael novinson The property at 39 and 41 Sophia Dr., were among the more than 700 Worcester properties listed by the city as being under foreclosure in 2014.

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By Sam Bonacci

Foreclosure filings continued two years of consecutive increases in February, jumping 45.6 percent year-over-year through Massachusetts and 66 percent in Worcester County.

This is the highest number of petitions reported in February since 2012, according to a new report from Boston real estate research firm The Warren Group.

Worcester County saw 227 foreclosure filings in February, bringing the year-to-date figure to 381 petitions, a 43-percent increase over last year. Within the county, Fitchburg had a 225-percent year-over-year foreclosure start increase in February and was up 127 percent so far this year. Worcester city foreclosure petitions were up 129 percent in February and 79 percent so far this year. The number of completed foreclosures was up 69 percent in February and 41 percent for the year.

For the entire state, lenders filed 1,264 petitions to foreclose in February, compared with 868 filed in February of last year. There have been 2,188 petitions filed year to date in Massachusetts, a 47.2-percent increase from last year’s mark through February of 1,486. Petitions are the first step in the foreclosure process.

“While there’s no doubt some new delinquencies are occurring, the majority of what we’re seeing as ‘new’ foreclosures are loans that have been delinquent for quite some time,” said Timothy Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group. “Lenders continue to work through what remains of their backlog from several years ago, when the entire industry ground to a halt to await the outcome of legislative and regulatory changes and updates.”

There were 519 completed foreclosure deeds filed in February, a 66.9-percent increase from the 311 deeds filed in February 2015. There have been a total of 867 deeds recorded in Massachusetts in 2016, a 52.6-percent increase from the 568 filed through February 2015. These deeds represent completed foreclosures.