National foreclosures drop in January

U.S. foreclosures dropped by 33 percent in January compared to the same month of 2013, according to real estate market tracker CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX).

The tracking firm reported 48,000 completed foreclosures last month, down from 59,000 in January 2013, according to a news release.

However, last month's foreclosure figure represents an 11.8 percent bump from the 43,000 reported foreclosures in December.

CoreLogic officials said foreclosures are slowing in a market that has seen roughly 4.9 million of them since the beginning of the recession in September 2008.

"We are recovering, but we're not there yet," CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming said in the release. "For every completed foreclosure, there are 954 mortgaged homes in nonjudicial foreclosure states and 896 mortgaged homes in judicial foreclosure states. Although this is a big improvement relative to the height of the foreclosure crisis, a healthier ratio would be one for every 2,000."

According to CoreLogic, in judicial foreclosure states, lenders must provide evidence to the courts of delinquency in order to move a borrower into a foreclosure. In nonjudicial foreclosure states, lenders may issue notices directly to the borrower without court intervention. Missouri is a nonjudicial foreclosure state.

The Show-Me State recorded 13,334 foreclosures for the 12 months ending in January. The state's foreclosure inventory - representing homes at some stage of the foreclosure process - was 0.8 percent last month, the release said.

The U.S. foreclosure inventory was roughly 2 percent in January, meaning some 794,000 homes were in some stage of the foreclosure process. In January 2013, the inventory figure was 1.2 million, or 2.9 percent.