Foreclosures Were Down 24% In 2013

Completed foreclosures dropped 24% in 2013 from the year prior, according to new data from CoreLogic.

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.