Foreclosure Trends for South Carolina

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SC Foreclosure Activity  Up 3 Percent for 3rd Qtr, Down 19% Year over Year

“U.S.  foreclosure activity has been mired down since October of last year, when  the robo-signing controversy sparked a flurry  of investigations into lender foreclosure procedures and paperwork,” said  James Saccacio, chief executive  officer of RealtyTrac. “While foreclosure  activity in September and the third quarter continued to register well below levels  from a year ago, there is evidence  that this temporary downward trend is about to  change direction, with foreclosure activity slowly beginning to ramp back  up.”

“Third quarter foreclosure activity increased marginally from the previous quarter, breaking a  trend of three consecutive quarterly  decreases that started in the fourth quarter of 2010,” Saccacio continued. “This marginal increase in overall  foreclosure activity was fueled by  a 14 percent jump in new default notices, indicating that lenders are cautiously throwing more wood into the  foreclosure fireplace after spending months trying  to clear the chimney of sloppily filed foreclosures.”

Forelcosure Trends

Foreclosure filings — 8,596 South Carolina  properties during the third quarter of 2011, according to the latest RealtyTrac®  U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. South Carolina ranks 14th in the Nation for foreclosure filings. Septemeber Foreclosure filings– amounted to 2,690  a 19 percent decrease from August and down 33 percent  from September 2010.

Foreclosures By County

  • Horry County also had the  highest total, reporting 1,377 properties with foreclosure filings.
  • Beaufort County had the second highest rate with one in every 129  housing units reporting a foreclosure filing
  • Dorchester  County had the third  highest rate, reporting one in every 149 housing units with a foreclosure  filing 
  • Charleston County had the second highest total in the state,  reporting 1,042 properties with foreclosure filings. 
  • Greenville   County had the third highest total with 818  properties with foreclosure filings . 
  • Richland County  was fourth highest total in the state. Fifth highest was Beaufort County, where 656 properties with  foreclosure filings were reported for the quarter.

State Forclosures versus the  nation
South Carolina accounted for 6100 forclsures versus  610,337 properties nationawide, in the third quarter

(Data is per RealtyTrac)