Foreclosures Hit New Low

The foreclosure inventory rate, or percentage of homes currently in the foreclosure process, hit a new low for the sixth month in a row in May, MarketWatch reports.

Overall delinquencies are also at the lowest since 1999, CoreLogic said, citing “a 50-year low in unemployment, rising home prices and responsible underwriting.”

Notably, that long-time low in all delinquencies comes alongside small local spikes in what’s called the “serious delinquency” rate, or loans that are more than 90 days past due. For example, one year past the massive California Camp Fire, serious delinquencies in the Chico, Calif., metro area jumped 21%.

That’s a small reminder of the housing market as it existed before the bubble inflated and then burst. All real estate is local, in part because natural disasters, microeconomies and municipal policies are particular to a region.

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