Home foreclosures are up nationwide but the level remains below historic norms.
“We are seeing an increase in foreclosures, but it’s coming from such a low level,” said Brad Case, chief residential economist for Homes.com. “It’s not anything like it was before the Great Financial Crisis" of 2007-2008.
Foreclosure activity has risen over the previous year for the last eight months. There were 36,766 foreclosure filings in the U.S. in October, up 3% from the previous month and 19% year over year, according to a Nov. 13 report from analytics firm ATTOM.
Even with the rise in foreclosures, the latest quarter was still substantially below the first quarter of 2020, when the number was closer to 100,000, according to the New York Fed's Consumer Credit Panel for the third quarter of 2025.
The Federal Housing Authority paused all federally backed home loans from going into foreclosure from March 2020 to July 31, 2021, with many banks following suit on private mortgages over the same period. The returning foreclosure proceedings have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.
“We’re now creeping up to not quite the lowest point recorded before the pandemic,” Case said.
Florida saw the largest jump. While one in every 3,871 homes nationally had a foreclosure filing in October, Florida saw the most with one filing for every 1,829 homes, according to the ATTOM report. Tampa, Jacksonville and Orlando were also the markets with the highest number of foreclosures nationwide.
Florida also had the highest number of foreclosure starts in October, with 4,136, followed by Texas with 3,080, California with 2,685, Illinois with 1,252, and New York with 1,165.
Expenses compete for stretched incomes
Chad Cummings is a real estate attorney and co-founder of Cummings & Cummings Law, which practices in Florida, Texas and Oklahoma. He told Homes.com that his clients are facing foreclosure because of inflation in the cost of living.
“They tell us that they’re hoping for some grace from their banks,” Cummings said of his pro-bono clients. “That only goes so long.”
He also said the phenomenon of rising foreclosures is highly localized. He points to the difference between places such as Lee County in Florida, which saw nearly three times more foreclosures than wealthier neighboring Collier County, according to Homes.com research.
“This is disproportionately affecting people on a fixed income,” Cummings said. “You get a cost-of-living crisis and something’s got to give.”
Case suspects that many of the foreclosures could be related to individuals who purchased new, larger homes during the pandemic and have since experienced financial difficulties, as well as those who have discovered they are underwater on their mortgage.
“They bought houses that were the right size for their demands during the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean it was the right house, financially speaking,” Case said. “People don’t typically walk away unless there is a disruption. And they don’t typically default, even if there is a disruption, unless they’re underwater.”
Cummings said some of his clients had been skating by on credit cards, that household debt has been rising. The household debt service ratio was 11.25 in the second quarter of 2025, according to the Federal Reserve, up from 11.16 the previous year.
However, that ratio is lower than at any time between 2005 and 2020. “Yes, people are more stretched than they used to be,” Case said, “but the situation became so much better than it used to be that a big increase really doesn’t mean a whole lot.”
Still, Cummings imagines the numbers will continue to climb. He said the recent government shutdown and its effects on benefits, such as SNAP, are likely to have ripple effects that will be felt for months as people try to balance their budgets.
“Are you going to pay the rent or are you going to eat?” he said. “Most people are going to eat.”