Colorado sees big drop in foreclosure filings in October

Foreclosures in Colorado continued trending downward in October, after the state experienced a spike in foreclosure filings in the third quarter, according to RealtyTrac.

The state had 653 properties with a foreclosure filing in October, down 37.5 percent from September and down 56.8 percent from October of 2013.

Colorado's rate of one foreclosure filing per every 3,387 households landed the state at No. 44 out of the 50 states, a far cry from the state's consistent ranking in the top 10 by RealtyTrac in the years immediately following the financial crisis.

The state experienced a 57 percent increase in foreclosures in August after several foreclosures were refiled because of Colorado Attorney General John Suthers' investigation into lawsuits against the state's largest foreclosure law firms, The Castle Law Group and Aronowitz & Mecklenburg.

The litigation led to the transfers of many foreclosure cases to new law firms, which in many cases refiled the cases from scratch.

Colorado had 429 foreclosure starts in October, down 49 percent from September and down 64 percent from October 2013, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, California-based private marketer of foreclosure properties.

The state had 224 foreclosures completed in October, up 12 percent from September, but down 30 percent from the same month last year.

Nationally, foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 123,109 U.S. properties in October, an increase of 15 percent from the previous month, but down 8 percent from a year ago.

The 15 percent monthly increase nationwide was the largest month-over-month increase since U.S. foreclosure activity peaked in March 2010.

Heather Draper covers banking, finance, law and sports business for the Denver Business Journal and writes for the "Finance Etc." blog. Phone: 303-803-9230.