Completed foreclosures fell 23 percent in November compared to a year ago and the national foreclosure inventory declined 18 percent from November 2011, from 1.5 to 1.2 million properties as demand from investors kept local inventories low.

According to CoreLogic, there were 55,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in November 2012, down from 72,000 in November 2011, a year-over-year decrease of 23 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures fell from 59,000* in October 2012 to the current 55,000, a decrease of 6 percent.

Approximately 1.2 million homes, or 3.0 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were in the national foreclosure inventory as of November 2012 compared to 1.5 million, or 3.5 percent, in November 2011. Month-over-month, the national foreclosure inventory was down 3.5 percent from October 2012 to November 2012. Year-over-year, the foreclosure inventory was down 18 percent. The foreclosure inventory is the share of all mortgaged homes in any stage of the foreclosure process.

(See National Foreclosure and Shadow Inventories fell by a Total 500K in 2012).

“The continued fall in completed foreclosures is a positive supply-side contribution in many regions of the U.S.,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “We still have a long way to go to return to historic norms, but this trend is firmly in the right direction.”

Historically, foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month between 2000 and 2006. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.0 million completed foreclosures .

“The pace of completed foreclosures has significantly improved over a year ago as short sales gain popularity as a disposition method. Additionally, the inventory of foreclosed properties continues to decline while the housing market demonstrates an ongoing ability to absorb the distressed sales that result from completed foreclosures,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

Highlights as of November 2012:

• The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in November 2012 were: California (102,000), Florida (94,000), Michigan (75,000), Texas (58,000) and Georgia (52,000).These five states account for 50 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.
• The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in November 2012 were: South Dakota (10), District of Columbia (62), Hawaii (415), North Dakota (491) and Maine (597).
• The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Florida (10.4 percent), New Jersey (7.3 percent), New York (5.1 percent), Nevada (4.7 percent) and Illinois (4.7 percent).
• The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Wyoming (0.4 percent), Alaska (0.7 percent), North Dakota (0.7 percent), Nebraska (0.8 percent) and South Dakota (1.0 percent).

*October data was revised. Revisions are standard, and to ensure accuracy CoreLogic incorporates newly released data to provide updated results.