Nevada going on five years as foreclosure capital of U.S.

Dreary conditions continued in the Nevada residential real estate market in November, with the state leading the nation in foreclosures for the 59th consecutive month.

Data released Wednesday night by foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac of Irvine, Calif., showed 6,512 Nevada properties received a foreclosure filing in November.

That’s up 3 percent from October, but down 43 percent from November 2010.

Analysts have attributed recent year-over-year declines to a new state law requiring improved documentation by lenders in foreclosures. They expect foreclosures to pick up in Nevada once banks adjust to the new process.

Despite the decline from 2010 to 2011 in Nevada, one in every 175 housing units in the state had a foreclosure filing in November.

That’s more than three times the national average of one in every 579, RealtyTrac said. It’s also a decline from October, when one in 180 Nevada housing units received a filing.

In the ranking of foreclosure rates among cities with populations of 200,000 or greater in November, nine of the top 10 spots were in California.

Stockton was No. 1 in the nation with one in every 120 housing units receiving a filing.

Las Vegas came in at No. 6 with one in every 150 receiving a filing, RealtyTrac said. That compares to one in every 162 homes in October.

This is the second consecutive month Stockton has been No. 1. Las Vegas was No. 5 in October.

Nationwide, RealtyTrac said, foreclosure filings fell 3 percent from October and 14 percent from November 2010.

But company analysts predicted there will be “a new set of incoming foreclosure waves.”

They said scheduled foreclosure auctions reached a nine-month high in November, meaning banks will be acquiring more properties or permitting more short sales in early 2012.

For the Las Vegas area, Wednesday’s numbers follow the release Tuesday of home price data from the Zillow marketplace showing prices locally in October running at a median of $106,700, down 0.5 percent from September and down 11.3 percent from October 2010.

Those numbers compare with figures from the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors showing the median price of single-family homes sold locally in November was $125,000, down 7.3 percent from $134,900 one year ago but up 3.3 percent from $121,000 in October.

With the elevated levels of foreclosures and unemployment (13.1 percent), it’s anyone’s guess as to when the local real estate market will turn around and produce sustained gains in pricing.

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