Foreclosures on North Carolina homes fell 38.3 percent in May from a year ago according to RealtyTrac Inc.
— good news for an industry still struggling to recover from the bursting of the financial and housing bubbles during the Great Recession.
Some 2,689 homes in North Carolina were in foreclosure proceedings in May, or one in every 1,584 households in the state, according to RealtyTrac Inc. The state ranks 36th in the nation for the rate of filings, RealtyTrac says. The May foreclosure number was down 3.4 percent from April.
Foreclosures nationwide dropped 33.4 percent last month from May 2010 and dipped 1.98 percent from April. There were 214,927 filings last month across the nation, or one in every 605 households. Delays in banks’ processing of foreclosure documents “continue to mask the true face of the foreclosure situation,” says James Saccario, chief executive of Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.