New Jersey foreclosure activity still high in 2014 according to the latest information from RealtyTrak which tracks the foreclosure market nationwide.  In New Jersey foreclosure filings have picked-up compared with a year ago, but, it still takes more than 2 1/2 years for lenders to evict New Jersey homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages.

According to RealtyTrak, the number of homes in or at risk of foreclosure  in New Jersey rose 55 percent from September of a year ago to September 2013. Foreclosures were all but frozen for more than a year after questions arose about “robo-signing” – in which mortgage industry representatives signed legal documents without checking them. It has resumed in the wake of several legal settlements and court rulings.

Lawyers from New Jersey’s largest foreclosure law firms such as Fein Such and Zucker Goldberg, tell me they filed a very large number of foreclosure cases in September and October in efforts to get many cases that were stalled for months back on track for a Sheriff’s sale.

New Jersey’s foreclosure process is still the second-slowest in the nation, after New York. Other states have already gotten past the worst of the foreclosure crisis, and foreclosure filings dropped nationwide about 27 percent in September compared with a year earlier.

In the third quarter, Florida and Nevada continued to have the highest foreclosure rates.