Foreclosure Starts Decrease 4 Percent from Last Month, While Completed Foreclosures Increase 7 Percent from Last Month
IRVINE, Calif., June 10, 2025 -- ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property data, and real estate analytics, today released its May 2025 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 35,498 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — down 1 percent from a month ago but up 9 percent from a year ago.
"Foreclosure activity in May reflected a mixed picture with fewer starts but a continued rise in completed foreclosures," said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. "This suggests that while fewer new defaults are being initiated, lenders may still be working through a backlog of existing cases. We'll be watching closely in the months ahead to see how these trends evolve."
Delaware, Florida, and Illinois post highest foreclosure rates
Nationwide one in every 4,009 housing units had a foreclosure filing in May 2025. States with the worst foreclosure rates were Delaware (one in every 2,313 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Florida (one in every 2,536 housing units); Illinois (one in every 2,668 housing units); Nevada (one in every 2,747 housing units); and Indiana (one in every 2,983 housing units).
Among the 110 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 500,000, those with the worst foreclosure rates in May 2025 were Lakeland, FL (one in every 1,506 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Cape Coral, FL (one in every 1,674 housing units); Jacksonville, FL (one in every 1,888 housing units); Bakersfield, CA (one in every 1,990 housing units); and Riverside, CA (one in every 2,031 housing units).
Those metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million with the worst foreclosure rates in May 2025 including Jacksonville, FL and Riverside, CA were: Cleveland, OH (one in every 2,064 housing units); San Antonio, TX (one in every 2,202 housing units); and Chicago, IL (one in every 2,203 housing units).
Greatest numbers of foreclosure starts in Texas, Florida and California
Lenders started the foreclosure process on 24,165 U.S. properties in May 2025, down 4 percent from last month but up 8 percent from a year ago.
States that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in May 2025 included: Texas (3,077 foreclosure starts); Florida (2,780 foreclosure starts); California (2,641 foreclosure starts); Illinois (1,242 foreclosure starts); and New York (1,222 foreclosure starts).
Those major metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in May 2025 included: New York, NY (1,174 foreclosure starts); Chicago, IL (1,084 foreclosure starts); Houston, TX (1,017 foreclosure starts); Los Angeles, CA (782 foreclosure starts); and Miami, FL (740 foreclosure starts).
Foreclosure completion numbers increase from last month and last year
Lenders repossessed 3,844 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in May 2025, up 7 percent from last month and up 34 percent from last year.
States that had the greatest number of REOs in May 2025, included: Texas (460 REOs); California (300 REOs); Pennsylvania (257 REOs); Michigan (236 REOs); and Florida (234 REOs).
Those major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with a population greater than 1 million that saw the greatest number of REOs in May 2025 included: Chicago, IL (305 REOs); New York, NY (119 REOs); Houston, TX (114 REOs); Detroit, MI (102 REOs); and Dallas, TX (97 REOs).
Report methodology
The ATTOM U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the ATTOM Data Warehouse during the month and quarter. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the quarter may have been recorded in the previous quarter. Data is collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population. ATTOM's report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). For the annual, midyear and quarterly reports, if more than one type of foreclosure document is received for a property during the timeframe, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The annual, midyear, quarterly and monthly reports all check if the same type of document was filed against a property previously. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state where the property is located, the report does not count the property in the current year, quarter or month.
About ATTOM
ATTOM powers innovation across industries with premium property data and analytics covering 158 million U.S. properties—99% of the population. Our multi-sourced real estate data includes property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, neighborhood and geospatial boundary information, all validated through a rigorous 20-step process and linked by a unique ATTOM ID.
From flexible delivery solutions—such as Property Data APIs, Bulk File Licenses, ATTOM Cloud, Real Estate Market Trends—to AI-Ready datasets, ATTOM fuels smarter decision-making across industries including real estate, mortgage, insurance, government, and more.
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