Foreclosure filings up in Baltimore metro area

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While the number of foreclosure filings in the United States decreased by 2 percent from January to February, the Baltimore metropolitan area saw a 32 percent increase, new data show.

There were 698 foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — in the area in February, accounting for one in every 1,622 housing units. That’s a 41 percent increase from the corresponding time last year, compared to an 8 percent decrease nationwide.

The metropolitan area covers Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne’s counties.

RealtyTrac, a foreclosure data firm, released its February foreclosure report Thursday.

“February’s numbers point to a gradually rising foreclosure tide as some of the barriers that have been holding back foreclosures are removed,” Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

In Maryland, there were 1,606 filings in February, accounting for one in every 1,481 housing units, a 28 percent increase from January and a 22 percent increase from February 2011. Default notices increased by 157 percent and foreclosure auctions increased by 66 percent in the state on a year-over-year basis.

Decreases in some states pushed national foreclosure activity lower, but Moore said 21 states saw a jump in annual foreclosure activity — the most states to post annual increases since November 2010.

The $25 billion settlement between 49 states’ attorneys general and five of the largest mortgage lenders over alleged foreclosure abuses is expected to clarify the filing process and free up a backlog of foreclosures.

The deal was filed in federal court this week and needs judicial approval.

“Not surprisingly, many of the biggest annual increases in February were in states with the more bureaucratic judicial foreclosure process, which resulted in a larger backlog of foreclosures built up over the last 18 months in those states,” Moore said.

Maryland is a judicial foreclosure state, where all foreclosure filings must go through court.

Though a 2010 Maryland law that required foreclosure mediation initially decreased filings, it’s no longer causing a slowdown as lenders have adjusted to the system, said Reece Dameron, an attorney with St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, a nonprofit that offers housing services to mainly low-income earners in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in our call volume in the last two months, especially since the beginning of the year,” he said.

The attorney generals’ settlement, coupled with a 2011 “Servicing Alignment Initiative” that aims to bring the servicing standards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in line with one another and to cut the foreclosure time frame in half, is moving things along, he said.

The largest increase in foreclosure filings in Maryland happened in Cecil County, where filings increased from 10 in January to 155 in February, a 1,450 percent leap.

Prince George’s County continues to top the state in the number of filings, with 359 in February, a 2 percent increase from the 352 filings in January.

Nationwide, Nevada, California and Arizona had the most foreclosure activity, according to the report. Though February was a 58-month low for Nevada, one in 278 housing units in the state had a foreclosure filing that month. That is more than twice the national average of one in 637 and puts Nevada at the top of the list for the 62nd straight month.

California had a foreclosure rate of one in 283 housing units, a 51-month low, and Arizona’s rate was one in 312, a 33 percent increase from January.