Lenders began foreclosure on 710 Tennessee properties in August 2026, up from 290 in August 2025, the steepest annual increase of any state on ATTOM’s list. The property data company’s Oct. 9 ranking of the ten biggest jumps puts the Tennessee gain at 144.8 percent. Oklahoma was second at 102.1 percent, and Mississippi, in third, rose 69.2 percent.
ATTOM counts a foreclosure start when a lender initiates the foreclosure process on a property. Only states with at least 100 starts in August 2026 were eligible for the ranking, which keeps a handful of filings in a small state from distorting the list.
For Tennessee homeowners, the count describes a specific group: people who fell behind on a mortgage and whose lender has already taken the first formal step. A start is the opening move rather than the finish. ATTOM tracks scheduled auctions and completed repossessions as separate categories, and in August the three moved by very different amounts.
ATTOM publishes a new monthly foreclosure report, so Tennessee’s 710 will be measured against September’s count next.
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Ten states where starts climbed fastest
The full list, with August 2025 and August 2026 starts, shows how far Tennessee sits from the rest of the field. Tennessee went from 290 to 710. Oklahoma went from 141 to 285. Mississippi moved from 91 to 154, Arkansas from 127 to 211, and Michigan from 681 to 1,019, a 49.6 percent rise.
Alabama followed at 38.5 percent, with starts going from 353 to 489. Georgia rose 37.8 percent, from 863 to 1,189. South Carolina rose 28.0 percent, from 776 to 993. Pennsylvania climbed 26.6 percent, from 413 to 523, and Minnesota closed out the list at 25.1 percent, from 395 to 494.
Two states, Tennessee and Oklahoma, more than doubled their counts. Every other state on the list came in under 70 percent.
Percentages and raw counts tell different stories
Tennessee’s gain of 420 starts is large, but it is not the largest in raw terms. Michigan added 338 starts and Georgia added 326, and both started the year-earlier comparison from much higher bases. Tennessee’s August total of 710 is also smaller than Michigan’s 1,019 and Georgia’s 1,189.
Percentage rankings reward states that start from a low number, and Tennessee’s 290 in August 2025 was one of the smaller year-earlier counts among the ten. Oklahoma’s 141 and Mississippi’s 91 were smaller still. That is why the ranking carries a floor of 100 starts: a state with a few dozen filings could post a triple-digit jump from a handful of properties.
ATTOM’s release did not say what drove the Tennessee increase, and it does not break the 710 starts down by county or loan type. The count is a monthly snapshot, and a single month can swing in either direction.
What the national figures show
Nationally, ATTOM’s August 2026 foreclosure market report counted 25,894 properties with a foreclosure start, down 3 percent from July and up 7 percent from August 2025. Tennessee’s 710 is about 2.7 percent of that national total.
Total foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, reached 40,277 properties. That was up 1 percent from July and 13 percent from a year earlier. One in every 3,569 housing units had a filing during the month.
Completed foreclosures, which ATTOM calls REOs, numbered 5,794, up 22 percent from July and 42 percent from August 2025. Texas had the most with 1,835, followed by California with 589, North Carolina with 356, Arizona with 296 and Alabama with 286.
The states with the highest foreclosure rates were South Carolina, at one filing for every 1,547 housing units, then Nevada at 1 in 1,920, Florida at 1 in 2,397, Texas at 1 in 2,445 and Maryland at 1 in 2,530. Tennessee was not among them. Florida had the most starts of any state with 3,189, ahead of Texas with 3,126, California with 2,565, Illinois with 1,192 and Georgia with 1,189.
Some large metro areas moved the other way. Cleveland’s starts fell from 281 to 175, Washington, D.C., from 364 to 227, and Providence from 88 to 55. ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said overall foreclosure volumes “remain well below historical norms” and that the broader housing market “continues to demonstrate resilience.”
Following Tennessee’s count and acting on a missed payment
The next ATTOM report will show whether August was a spike or the start of a trend. Tennessee homeowners who have received a default notice from a mortgage servicer do not need to wait for it. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development runs a page on avoiding foreclosure, and the servicer named on the notice is the first office to call.
Anyone in that position should have the notice, the most recent mortgage statement and the date of the last payment in front of them before the call. The dates on the notice matter more than any monthly statistic, because they set how much time remains to respond.
ATTOM’s own numbers set the scale: 710 Tennessee properties entered foreclosure in August, against 290 a year before, in a month when lenders started the process on 25,894 properties nationwide.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
