Foreclosures Are Rising — Here’s the Context the Headlines Miss

If you’ve spent any time online lately, you’ve probably seen some version of this headline: “Foreclosures Surge in 2025.”

It’s an attention-grabbing phrase. It’s also incomplete.

As someone who lives and works in the housing market every day, I’m far more interested in what the data actually says than in what gets the most clicks. And when you look closely, the story around foreclosures in 2025 is far calmer than many headlines suggest.

What actually happened in 2025?

According to ATTOM’s Year-End 2025 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, foreclosure filings increased by 14% in 2025, totaling 367,460 properties nationwide. On the surface, that sounds significant.

But here’s the critical context: those filings represented just 0.26% of all U.S. housing units.

That’s still a historically low level.

To understand why this matters, consider where we’ve been before. At the height of the housing crisis in 2010, foreclosure filings impacted 2.23% of all housing units. Compared to that, today’s rate is nearly 90% lower.

In other words, foreclosures are rising from exceptionally low levels — not from crisis conditions.

Normalization, not collapse

Even ATTOM’s CEO, Rob Barber, described this trend as a “continued normalization of the housing market” following several years of historically suppressed foreclosure activity.

That’s an important distinction.

A normalizing market means activity is returning to more typical patterns after years of unusual conditions — first driven by pandemic protections, then by historically tight lending standards and record homeowner equity.

It does not mean widespread homeowner distress or a looming housing crash.

In fact, most homeowners today are in a much stronger position than they were in the mid-2000s:

• Lending standards have been far stricter for over a decade

• Homeowners have accumulated substantial equity due to years of price appreciation

• The majority of mortgages are fixed-rate, with many locked in well below today’s interest rates

These factors create a strong buffer against mass foreclosures.

A segment to watch — but not the whole market

That said, there are pockets of the market worth monitoring.

Experts have pointed out that some FHA borrowers may face additional challenges under new loss-mitigation rules, particularly those with limited equity or prior loan modifications. This could contribute to higher foreclosure activity within that specific segment.

But that is not the same thing as saying the broader housing market is at risk. It’s a targeted issue affecting a narrower group of borrowers, not a systemic problem like we saw in 2008–2010.

What this means for homeowners and buyers

If you’re a homeowner, this data should be reassuring. A modest uptick in foreclosures does not mean your home value is about to drop or that we’re heading back to crisis conditions.

If you’re a buyer, it’s also worth understanding that this isn’t signaling a wave of distressed inventory hitting the market. The vast majority of homeowners are still sitting on meaningful equity, which reduces the likelihood of forced sales.

Bottom line

Yes — foreclosures are up compared to 2024.
No — this is not a repeat of the last housing crisis.

We are seeing a return to more typical levels of foreclosure activity after years of unusually low numbers. That’s normalization, not panic.

Headlines are designed to grab attention.
Data is designed to guide decisions.

And right now, the data tells a much more stable story than many headlines would have you believe.

If you have questions about what this means for your local market or your own situation, I’m always here to help you think through it clearly — with real numbers, not fear-based narratives.