Foreclosure sale pending
A foreclosed house with sale pending sign is shown in Tigard, Ore.
(The Associated Press)
The foreclosure rate in the Portland area and across Oregon continued to fall in May as the housing market and the economy showed improvement.
According to the data firm
, 2 percent of mortgaged Oregon homes were in any stage of the foreclosure process in May, down from 2.8 percent a year earlier. In the Portland area, the rate was 1.7 percent, down from 2.4 percent in the same period.
Lenders have, however, increased the rate at which they're foreclosing on homes over the last 12 months. Lenders seized 5,140 Oregon homes over the 12-month period ending in May, up from 4,121 in the 12 months before that.
That comes as lenders are apparently acclimating to new foreclosure laws in Oregon.
Mortgage services in the state continue to route most foreclosures through the court system. That practice that was abandoned in favor of a streamlined, nonjudicial system until
that lenders were skirting recording laws through their use of a private document handling system.
The ruling temporarily brought foreclosure to a halt in 2012 as lenders reorganized to work in the judicial system.
Then in August, the state
, which again temporarily slowed foreclosures. They've picked up again in recent months.
The nationwide foreclosure stock had been a significant drag on the housing market as empty homes languished for sale and helped push down prices on other homes. Now, however, a lack of homes for sale has helped drive prices higher.
-- Elliot Njus