New report from CoreLogic details the slow, but steady recovery of the nation’s housing market as states plow through pending foreclosures – how did your city do?

As one of 26 non-judicial states, which allow foreclosures to be completed without the oversight of a judge, Texas’ road to recovery has been markedly shorter than most – and Houston has been no exception.

In April of last year, according to a new CoreLogic report, as agencies and brokerage firms were battling their way through a thick, murky sea of impending foreclosures, Houston’s foreclosure inventory stood at a relatively benign 1.1 percent – a number many metros would be happy with today. Regardless, the city has continued to wade through the remnants of the recession with diligence. In only 12 months, 9,380 foreclosures have been completed in Houston.

Serious delinquencies in the city remain a looming issue at 3.2 percent, but considering how well Houston has worked to complete foreclosures and replenish overall inventory, the rate should go down in the coming months.

A National Look

CoreLogic’s report, while breaking the data down state-to-state, and in some instances metro-to-metro, also included broader figures to help paint a national picture:

• Since March, foreclosure inventory has shrunk by 4.7 percent, down 35 percent since April 2013.
• For the first time since Sept. 2013, serious delinquencies in the country are at 4.5 percent.
• The national foreclosure rate is now back to Nov. 2008 levels.
• 46,000 foreclosures were completed nationwide in April.

Though Slow, the Recovery Is Underway

Though some may be recovering more quickly than others, it seems that across the board states are working through foreclosures faster than they come up.

“Over the past 12 months, completed foreclosures fell to 599,000, the lowest level since the Great Recession began in 2007,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “At the current pace of completed foreclosures, and given the current foreclosure inventory, it will take 14 months to move all of the foreclosed inventory through the pipeline.”

Mimicking Khater’s optimistic tone, CoreLogic CEO and President Anand Nallathambi added that the U.S. has now “registered two and a half years of continuous decreases in the number of homeowners who are in some stage of the foreclosure process.”

“This consistent decline means fewer Americans are experiencing the distress of delinquency and default,” he said. “The recovery may be slow, but it is steady.”