COLUMBUS, Ohio – Once a painful symptom of the recession and a chief cause of the downturn in the real estate market, foreclosures have declined in Ohio for five years in a row, according to statistics released by the Ohio Supreme Court.
The 43,727 new filings in common pleas courts of residential, commercial, and tax foreclosure cases last year represented a decline of nearly 18 percent from 2013, and a decline of slightly more than 50 percent over 2009 when the state reached an all-time high of 89,061 new filings.
There were significant declines among Ohio’s largest counties, except for Franklin County, where foreclosures fell only 3.7 percent from 2013 to 2014, compared with Cuyahoga County’s 20.3 percent, Hamilton County’s 22.3 percent and Summit County’s 15.6 percent.
According to the court’s data, foreclosures in Franklin County have fallen 43 percent since their high-water mark in 2010.