November mortgage foreclosures in Colorado dropped more sharply than in the rest of the nation, according to RealtyTrac data.
The Colorado rate was down 20 percent compared with October and down 24 percent from November 2010.
The comparable national rates were 3 percent and 14 percent, RealtyTrac said.
“Colorado has shown improvement,” said Daren Blomquist, Calif.-based RealTrac’s marketing director.
“One of the things that states which have shown the strongest results share is lower unemployment rates,” Blomquist said.
Colorado’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent in November, while the U.S. unemployment rate was 8.6 percent.
In Colorado, there was one foreclosure in November for every 575 households in the state — making it 11th in the nation in foreclosures.
Garfield County was hardest hit, with one foreclosure filing for every 253 households, Adams was second with one for every 315 and Weld as third with one foreclosure for every 324 households.
Nevada had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate last month, with one in every 175 households receiving a foreclosure notice, RealtyTrac said.
There was a slowing in foreclosures since October 2010 after problems surfaced with the way many lenders were handling foreclosures.
Now banks are starting to file the paperwork again.
“There are signs that there will be another wave of foreclosures earlier next year,” Blomquist said.
Most of those bank notices are in Florida and California, he said.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
