Foreclosures fell 9 percent – not just Phoenix homes but nationally – in October

Foreclosures fell 9 percent last month. Is this reason to celebrate? Not quite yet. As CNN reported last week, this decline is largely due to the bank freeze of foreclosures. They wrote that "Foreclosure filings of all kinds, including notices of default, notices of auctions and notices of auction sales, dropped 4.4 percent during the month, according to a report released by RealtyTrac on Thursday. But bank repossessions, the filing most affected by the freeze, shrank 8.7 percent."

It's good news that foreclosures decreased in other areas but the banking industry is what drove the majority of the decline - meaning that when the banks return to processing foreclosures accurately and in a timely manner, these numbers could easily increase. So don't be surprised if you see headlines in the coming months indicating that foreclosures are up. These headlines grab attention but, in reality, the numbers would be based on an unusual incident.

The unusual incident - the foreclosure freeze - is complicated and last month I blogged about the nuts and bolts of the situation. You can find that blog on Realtor.com here.

Check out the blog if you have a chance and I'll reiterate the advice that I gave there. For realtors and prospective home buyers, the foreclosure/robo-signing mess means that we need to be more cognizant of the properties that are on the market. If you or a client are interested in buying a foreclosed property, just make sure to check into the specific piece of real estate to ensure that it is properly documented. This will increase your chances of your purchase not getting put on hold or taking a long time to exchange hands.

Back to the October data quickly, I thought it would be of interest to us Arizonans to know how we fared nationally. Not entirely surprisingly, Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate in October, with one in every 79 households being repossessed. Yes, that is high - in fact, it is nearly 5 times the national average.

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