Worcester foreclosure starts drop 25%

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By Sam Bonacci

Foreclosure starts in Worcester County dropped by 24.7 percent in October, beating the state average and marking continued decline in foreclosures, which had been on the increase until September.

The October numbers mark the second month of year-over-year declining foreclosure starts, the step that marks the beginning of the foreclosure process, for Worcester County. There were 162 starts filed in Worcester in October compared to 215 in the previous year, according to Boston real estate date firm The Warren Group. This decline beat the state average, which fell by 15.6 percent in October compared with October 2015.

“It's safe to say the foreclosure starts are finally in decline again,” Timothy Warren., CEO of The Warren Group, said in a statement. “The backlog of old delinquent mortgages being fed into the foreclosure pipeline is drying up after two-and-a-half years of heavy processing work. The recent issue was never weakness in the real estate market or in mortgage underwriting. It was backlog of bad loans where action had been delayed.”

However, the recent decline has not leveled out the year-to-date increase in foreclosure starts, which is still up by 9.3 percent for the state and 2.4 percent for Worcester County compared to 20150. Finalized foreclosures in Worcester are up 60.3 percent year-to-date for Worcester County and 48.6 percent statewide.