R.I. foreclosure filings up 117 percent

PROVIDENCE – Bucking a national trend, foreclosure filings in Rhode Island rose in June compared with the same month last year, RealtyTrac said Thursday.

The Irvine, Calif.-based real estate tracking firm said 711 properties received foreclosure notices in June, up from 327 the same month last year.

Of those, 471 residential properties in the state received a notice of trustee sale last month, up from 147 last June. The notices are a precursor to a foreclosure sale, although some homeowners may be able to strike an 11th-hour deal with lenders.

Lenders repossessed another 240 homes, up from 180 the same month last year.

All told, RealtyTrac said foreclosure filings touched 1 in every 636 properties in the Ocean State last month. The company said that foreclosure notices touched a higher percentage of homes in 13 other states.

Across the United States, RealtyTrac said some 222,740 properties – or 1 in every 584 homes – received a foreclosure filing last month. The total number of properties marked a 29 percent decline from June 2010 but a 3.6 increase from May 2011.

During the first half of the year, filings across the United States fell 29.3 percent compared with the same period last year. And they are down 25.5 percent from the second half of last year.

In Rhode Island, though, foreclosure filings during the first half of this year were up 3.9 percent compared with the same period last year. They were up 23.3 percent compared with the second half of last year.

RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio cautioned against reading optimistically into the national declines.

“It would be nice to report that foreclosure activity is dropping as a result of improvements in the economy or the housing market,” said James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac. “Unfortunately, with unemployment rates inching back up, consumer confidence weak and home sales and prices continuing to languish, this doesn’t appear to be the case.”

RealtyTrac estimates that 1 million foreclosure actions that should have taken place in 2011 will now happen in 2012 or later.