by Calculated Risk on 3/20/2012 04:18:00 PM

There has been some discussion on when activity would increase for completed foreclosures. Last month, LPS reported that foreclosure sales increased 29% month-over-month in January.

LPS Applied Analytis was kind enough to provide me their estimates of foreclosure sales, by month, since January 2008.

Note: The sequence is 1) a loan goes delinquent, 2) if it doesn't cure, after several months, the foreclosure process begins (this is called the "foreclosure inventory"), 3) then the foreclosure is completed "foreclosure sale" and becomes REO (lender Real Estate Owned), and then 4) the REO is sold. Sometimes during this process, the loan will cure or a short sale approved, and not all loans in the foreclosure inventory reach "foreclosure sales".

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the number of foreclosure sales per month since January 2008 according to LPS Applied Analytics.

There was a significant decline in foreclosure sales in late 2010 due to the foreclosure process issues.

There is plenty of month-to-month variability, but it appears foreclosure sales have picked up again (sales were up 29% compared to December 2011, and up 15% compared to January 2011).

This will be very useful data to track the expected increase in foreclosure activity.