The number of new foreclosure cases increased 45% from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025. There were 374 real property cases filed in federal court last quarter involving banking and financial services companies. Q1’s total beats the number of cases filed for every quarter since Q1 2023, and is more than double the cases filed in Q1 2024, according to a Bloomberg Law dockets search.
The Q1 complaints consist of both initial petitions for foreclosure brought by mortgage holders or servicers, as well as contested non-judicial foreclosure complaints brought by borrowers. The increase suggests that more borrowers may be defaulting on their mortgage obligations. Economists are warning of a “murky” housing market ahead, which the increased volume of foreclosure cases appears to corroborate. Financial institutions as well as their outside counsel should keep an eye on foreclosure numbers in the coming months.
GENERATE THE DATA
To replicate the research that was used for this article:
1. Visit Bloomberg Law’s Dockets Search.
(Bloomberg Terminal subscribers: Run BLAW OUT and search for “dockets”.)
Bloomberg Law’s Dockets is a tool that allows users to easily search through federal and state court records to find dockets sheets and pleadings in cases of interest, as well as to set alerts on new cases or events.
2. Under Date, select the “Date Range” option in the drop-down menu, and select the date range of “01/01/2025 – 03/01/2025" in the calendar display.
3. Scroll down the dockets search page to US District & Appellate Options, and click on Nature of Suit. In the search bar, type “foreclosure” and select the option that appears. This will bring up all federal cases where the nature of suit category “Real Property – Foreclosure [*220]” was selected.
4. Scroll down to More Options, and under Industry, click on the arrow to the left of Financials. Select Banking and Financial Services and then click Search at the bottom right corner of the screen.
6. To download the results, select the download icon above the list of results and select a format. The results show the number of cases, the parties, where the case was filed, the assigned judge, any resolution and, if available, the cause(s) of action.
The resulting data can be used to quickly and efficiently identify and track relevant cases.
Because Bloomberg Law’s research tools are regularly updated, users’ results when following these instructions may differ from the results generated for this article.
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