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Foreclosures on homes in the U.S. surged in January after a pandemic moratorium ended, though they remained well below pre-Covid levels, according to new data from RealtyTrac, Bloomberg News reported. Foreclosure filings such as default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions jumped 29% from a month earlier and more than doubled compared with January 2021, the report said. Lenders repossessed 4,784 properties in the month and started the process on another 11,854 homes. “It’s very important to keep these numbers in context,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of RealtyTrac, a unit of real estate research firm Attom Data Solutions. “Foreclosure completions are still far below normal levels -– less than half as many as in January of 2020 before the pandemic was declared. He said that after the end of the moratorium, “we’re likely to continue seeing large year-over-year percentage increases for the rest of this year.” Measured against the total number of homes, the state with the highest foreclosure rate is New Jersey, where one in every 2,336 housing units has a filing. Nationwide, the ratio is one in 5,922. Among large cities, the worst foreclosure rates in January were in Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago.

Rising rents are one of the main drivers in the recent bout of inflation. They are also spurring many renters to try to buy a home as quickly as possible, the Wall Street Journal reported. Average monthly rents listed in the U.S. jumped more than 14% year over year in December, climbing to $1,877, according to data from Redfin. In many major cities, including Austin, Texas, and Miami, rents increased by more than 30%. Economists still recommend buying a home as a way to stave off inflation and build wealth, though it is hardly easy. Buyers are already contending with rising home prices, decreased inventory, bidding wars and the prospect of higher mortgage rates. Many renters are staying on the hunt nevertheless. They are redoing the math on renting after seeing their monthly payments go up and rushing to get a home — any home — to outrun coming rises in mortgage rates and future rent increases. The pressure on renters is coming from many directions. Higher rents are eating into buyers’ down-payment savings, while rising home prices mean they need to come up with a bigger down payment to compete with other buyers. As of January 2022, the median home price increased to $357,300, up 14% year over year, according to Redfin.

Americans borrowed more than ever to buy homes in 2021. The Mortgage Bankers Association estimates that mortgage lenders issued $1.61 trillion in purchase loans in 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported. That is up slightly from $1.48 trillion in 2020 and above the previous record of $1.51 trillion in 2005. The mortgage boom reflects a thriving housing market and the corresponding run-up in prices over the past year. Many of the forces that pushed Americans into the housing market in the early months of the pandemic — low interest rates and a desire for bigger homes — continue to drive up prices and mortgage balances. What’s more, many Americans got raises and built up savings during the pandemic, giving them the means to buy. The rate of home-price growth has slowed in recent months but remains near record levels. Home prices rose 19.1% in the year that ended in October. Sales of existing homes in 2021 were expected to reach their highest level since 2006.