Globe reports decline in new foreclosures

The Boston Globe repeats a Warren Group report that new foreclosures in January were down 30% from the prior year. That assertion seemed to be contradicted by our own figures which showed that the number of orders of notice recorded at this registry in January were up 61% from the number recorded in January 2012 (74 this year vs 46 last year). Upon further review, however, the Warren Group seems to be counting the number of new cases filed in the Land Court pursuant to the Service Members Civil Relief Act while the orders of notice we count are generated a month or so later by those same filings. Assuming it takes the Land Court a month to process a new complaint and issue the order of notice, the number of orders of notice we record in February should mirror the number of new foreclosure cases filed in Land Court in January. That does seem to be the case. While our orders of notice were way up in January, they were way down in February, dropping 59% from 78 in February 2012 to 32 in February 2013. Hopefully this is a trend that will continue through the spring.