Foreclosures Were Down 24% In 2013

There were 620,111 completed foreclosures last year, compared to 820,498 in 2012.

For December 2013, foreclosures came in at 45,000, down 14% year-over-year and 4.1% month-over-month.

"The decline indicates that the distressed foreclosure inventory is healing at an accelerating rate heading into 2014," CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming said in a release.

"Clearly, 2013 was a transitional year for residential property in the United States. Higher home prices and lower shadow inventory levels, together with a slowly improving economy, are hopeful signals that we are turning a long-awaited corner," added CoreLogic CEO Anand Nallathambi. "The housing market should continue to heal in 2014, but we expect progress to remain very slow."

Some highlights from the report:

- Florida, Michigan, California, Texas, and Georgia accounted for almost half of all national completed foreclosures in 2013.

- Florida had the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgage homes, at 6.7%.

- Wyoming had the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes, at 0.4%.

And check out the chart from CoreLogic showing the number of mortgaged homes per completed foreclosure.

CoreLogic