RealtyTrac counted a total of 154,281 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions — last month. The number is up 2 percent from January, but is down a full 25 percent from February 2012.

The number of American homes entering the foreclosure pipeline also declined 25 percent from a year earlier, and bank repossessions tumbled 29 percent year-over-year to land at their lowest volume since September 2007.

“At a high level the U.S. foreclosure inferno has been effectively contained and should be reduced to a slow burn in the next two years,” RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist says. “But dangerous foreclosure flare-ups are still popping up in states where foreclosures have been delayed by a lengthy court process or by new legislation making it more difficult to foreclose outside of the court system.”

The highest rates of foreclosure were documented in Florida, Nevada, and Illinois.

Source: Fox Business