Foreclosure starts in Worcester County fell 18.1 percent in November, reflecting a statewide slowdown of petitions in the later months of 2016.
November is the third straight month of declining foreclosure petitions in Worcester County, which saw 163 starts in November 2016 compared to 199 in the same month last year. Statewide, Massachusetts filed 880 foreclosure starts this past November, a 15.9-percent decline from 1,047 the November before, according to a Wednesday report from The Warren Group, a Boston-based real estate data firm.
A foreclosure start is the beginning of the foreclosure process and is indicative of the number of loan delinquencies in the housing market.
The decline still hasn’t quite managed to offset 2016 year-to-date petition filings, which were up 0.3 percent in November for Worcester County. Statewide, year-to-date filings were up 6.8 percent in November.
