Maryland foreclosure filings jumped 65 percent in May from last year, pushing the state’s foreclosure rate into the top 10 nationwide.
The state saw 5,852 foreclosure filings last month, according to data released Thursday.
One of every 399 houses received a filing in May — the 10th-worst rate in the country, according to RealtyTrac, a company that tracks foreclosure data as well as markets and sells foreclosed properties.
Virginia had 6,242 filings in May, for a nearly 16 percent increase from last year, and was ranked 17th in the country in terms of filings per number of homes. Filings include default notices, auctions and bank repossessions.
Filings in Prince George’s County, which has been plagued by the foreclosure crisis, increased 34 percent from a year ago, to 1,738. The county accounted for about 30 percent of Maryland’s total and had the highest foreclosure rate in the Washington area.
High foreclosure rates in areas such as Prince George’s, as well as Prince William County in Virginia, are reflections of “excessive exuberance” during the boom years, said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive officer of Sage Policy Group, an economic consulting firm in Baltimore.
The number of filings in the Washington area as a whole fell about 2.5 percent from last year to 5,705. Filings in Fairfax and Prince William counties dropped by about 8 percent and 38 percent, respectively. In Montgomery County, filings dropped 43 percent.
Still, 90-day mortgage delinquency rates — an indication that properties are likely to go into foreclosure — were still climbing through the end of last year, said Andy Bauer, regional economist with the Baltimore branch of the Richmond Federal Reserve.
The rates ticked down during the first quarter of 2010, but it’s “too early to say that that’s a definitive, positive development,” he said.
Basu also pointed to high delinquency rates as a sign that the worst may not be over.
“I still think that we’re headed for rising foreclosures,” he said.
