Indiana Tops ATTOM's H1 2026 Foreclosure Starts Ranking — But Check the Percentages Against the Counts

ATTOM's Figures Friday post published July 24, 2026 ranks the top 10 states by annual growth in foreclosure starts for the first half of 2026, adding state-level detail underneath the national midyear numbers. The ranking is restricted to states with at least 500 foreclosure starts in H1 2026, and it does not match the volume leaderboard most investors work from.

The H1 2026 Starts-Growth Ranking

Per ATTOM, Indiana led the list, with foreclosure starts rising from 3,045 in January–June 2025 to 4,779 in January–June 2026. Below, each state is shown with ATTOM's published counts, the percentage ATTOM printed next to those counts, and the percentage that results from dividing the increase by the 2025 base — the conventional year-over-year method:

• Indiana — 3,045 → 4,779 (ATTOM lists 36.3%; increase over the 2025 base = 57.0%)
• North Carolina — 3,465 → 5,248 (ATTOM lists 34.0%; over the 2025 base = 51.5%)
• Alabama — 2,466 → 3,359 (ATTOM lists 26.6%; over the 2025 base = 36.2%)
• Mississippi — 566 → 751 (ATTOM lists 24.6%; over the 2025 base = 32.7%)
• Minnesota — 2,156 → 2,844 (ATTOM lists 24.2%; over the 2025 base = 31.9%)
• Georgia — 6,259 → 8,164 (ATTOM lists 23.3%; over the 2025 base = 30.4%)
• Arizona — 3,982 → 5,186 (ATTOM lists 23.2%; over the 2025 base = 30.2%)
• Arkansas — 1,197 → 1,454 (ATTOM lists 17.7%; over the 2025 base = 21.5%)
• Colorado — 2,964 → 3,543 (ATTOM lists 16.3%; over the 2025 base = 19.5%)
• Missouri — 2,053 → 2,393 (ATTOM lists 16.6% as printed here from the counts; ATTOM lists 14.2%; over the 2025 base = 16.6%)

Why the Percentage Column Needs a Second Look

Across all ten entries, the printed percentage equals the increase divided by the 2026 count rather than the 2025 count. Indiana's 1,734-start increase is 36.3% of 4,779 but 57.0% of 3,045; Colorado's 579-start increase is 16.3% of 3,543 but 19.5% of 2,964. The pattern holds for every state on the list, so the percentages should not be read as conventional year-over-year growth rates without confirming the calculation basis with ATTOM directly. The counts themselves are the figures to underwrite from. One practical note: the rank order is the same either way, so Indiana still sits at the top and Missouri at the bottom of this particular screen under both calculations.

Base sizes matter just as much as the percentage column. Mississippi's increase rests on 751 starts; Georgia's rests on 8,164. Two states can sit one rank apart and describe filing counts that differ by an order of magnitude, which is why the percentage column and the absolute column have to be read together.

Growth Leaders Are Not Volume Leaders

ATTOM reports that the states recording the most foreclosure starts in H1 2026 were Texas (20,739), Florida (20,358), California (16,040), Georgia (8,164), and Illinois (7,424). Only Georgia appears on both lists. Texas, Florida, and California carry the largest raw counts without ranking in the top 10 for annual percentage growth — a reminder that "fastest-growing" and "largest" are separate screens built from the same dataset.

The rate-based view is a third, distinct ranking. Nationwide, ATTOM reported 0.16% of all housing units — one in every 632 — had a foreclosure filing in H1 2026. The worst state rates were Florida (0.27%), South Carolina (0.26%), Indiana (0.25%), Delaware (0.25%), and Illinois (0.23%), with Nevada and New Jersey both at 0.22%, Ohio at 0.20%, and Maryland and Utah both at 0.19%. Indiana is the one state appearing in the top three of both the rate ranking and the starts-growth ranking.

Two ATTOM Lists, Two Different Metrics

This is where misreads happen. The Figures Friday list measures foreclosure starts — the filing that initiates the process. The midyear report separately ranks the largest annual increases in total foreclosure activity (properties with default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions) among states with at least 500 filings: Idaho up 59%, Colorado up 57%, Georgia up 52%, North Carolina up 47%, and Mississippi up 45%.

Colorado is the cleanest illustration: it appears on the starts screen with 2,964 rising to 3,543, and on the activity screen at +57%. Same state, same half-year, two very different growth figures, because the metrics count different documents at different stages of the process. Idaho appears on the activity list and not on the starts-growth top 10 at all. If you are building a state screen, pin down which of the two numbers your thesis depends on — and confirm how each percentage was calculated before comparing them side by side.

The National Backdrop

ATTOM's Mid-Year 2026 report counted 227,548 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in the first six months of 2026, up 21% year over year and up 28% from the same period two years earlier. A total of 164,566 properties started the foreclosure process, up 18% from H1 2025 and up 66% from H1 2020 — ATTOM's own stated baseline. Completed foreclosures (REOs) reached 27,983, up 33% year over year but still 26% below H1 2020.

ATTOM CEO Rob Barber described a market "gradually returning to more typical patterns," adding that the increases suggest some homeowners are facing greater financial strain than a year ago. Commenting on the same report to HousingWire, Mirza Hodzic, founder and managing director of BlackWolf Advisory Group, attributed the increase to a mix of financial pressure and normalization after several years of unusually low activity, citing higher taxes, insurance, and household costs; he said the 18% rise in starts "tells us more loans are entering the pipeline." That is Hodzic's interpretation, not a finding in ATTOM's data tables.

Read the Timeline Stat Correctly

Properties foreclosed in Q2 2026 had spent an average of 563 days in the process, down 13% from a year earlier and, per ATTOM, the lowest average since 2013 — the seventh consecutive quarterly decline. State averages for Q2-completed cases ranged from Louisiana at 3,491 days, Hawaii at 2,293, and New York at 2,007, down to Texas at 155 days, New Hampshire at 157, Wyoming at 173, West Virginia at 196, and Alaska at 199.

These averages describe how long cases that already finished took. They are not a forecast of when H1 2026 starts will appear on an auction calendar, and they are not a holding-period or redemption-exposure estimate. Verify current, case-level timelines in the county where you are bidding.

Separately, and on a different period and a different metric: Cotality reported that the U.S. foreclosure inventory rate reached 0.4% in March 2026, up 0.1 percentage point year over year and its highest level in six years, with 77% of U.S. metros posting higher foreclosure rates in Q1 2026 and the largest metro-level rate increases in parts of Florida and Texas. That is a loan-performance measure, not ATTOM's filings count, and the two series should be tracked separately rather than stacked.

What to Verify Before Acting on the Ranking

State totals are aggregations of county-level recordings; ATTOM collects its data from more than 3,000 counties. An increase from 3,045 to 4,779 starts in Indiana, or 3,465 to 5,248 in North Carolina, says nothing about distribution inside those states, and the H1 2026 metro rate leaders published in the same report — Punta Gorda, FL (0.50%), Lakeland, FL (0.48%), Columbia, SC (0.43%), Macon, GA (0.36%), and Fayetteville, NC (0.36%) — only partially overlap with the starts-growth states. None of the ATTOM or Cotality releases cited here specify each listed state's foreclosure procedure, so do not assume the same "start" document carries the same legal meaning in every jurisdiction on the list; the difference between judicial and non-judicial process should be confirmed against each state's own statutes and court or trustee resources, not inferred from filing counts. Confirm filing type, the statutory notice sequence, and the current sale calendar at the county recorder and trustee level before underwriting off any state percentage. Track the pre-foreclosure stage and the auction calendar as separate data sets, because ATTOM's starts figure counts an initiating document, not a scheduled sale.