The 2026 Massachusetts Foreclosure Risk Index
Low foreclosure risk statewide, concentrated in Springfield
Published on October 20th, 2026, by John Carter | Founder, NestCashOriginal NestCash research, free to read and cite.
Abstract
Massachusetts has a foreclosure filing rate well below the national rate, and its trend has diverged from the nation’s. In the first half of 2026, 2,719 Massachusetts properties had a foreclosure filing, one for every 1,115 housing units, the 36th-highest rate of any state, against a national rate of one in 632. That was 3 percent more than in the first half of 2025, while filings nationally rose 21 percent, and 20 percent fewer than in the first half of 2024, while filings nationally rose 28 percent (ATTOM Data Solutions). At the end of 2025, 0.6 percent of Massachusetts mortgages were 90 or more days delinquent, against 0.9 percent nationally, and the state’s rate has been below the national rate at the end of each of the last three years (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).
But the pressure is uneven. In the second half of 2025, Springfield had 3.79 foreclosure petitions for every 1,000 owner households, more than three times the statewide average of 1.18 (Massachusetts Housing Partnership, from Warren Group data). We built a county-level Foreclosure Risk Index from four public datasets to see where the pressure is building. Dukes County, which includes Martha’s Vineyard, ranks first at 79.9, and it is a second-home market, which we flag throughout the report. Hampden County, home to Springfield, ranks second at 52.0, and it has the highest score of any county that is not a second-home market in every version of the index we tested. Middlesex County, the state’s largest by number of homes, ranks last at 14.7, and Norfolk County has the second-lowest score.
We score each county from 0 to 100 by blending four public signals, each weighted by how directly it bears on a mortgaged homeowner: market softness (35 percent), mortgage cost burden (30 percent), 90-day mortgage delinquency (20 percent), and unemployment (15 percent). Each signal is min-max normalized within Massachusetts, so the score ranks counties against one another in the state, not against a national or absolute standard. A county grades Elevated at 50 or above, Moderate from 44 to 49.9, and Lower below 44. We rank counties with at least 12,000 housing units, and all 14 Massachusetts counties clear that floor, so every county is ranked. Because four counties, including the top-ranked one, are second-home markets, we flag them, and we tested the index five different ways and report which findings hold in all of them. The full weighting, the normalization, and the limits of the data are spelled out in the methodology section below.
Key findings
- Filings are low and below their 2024 level, against a rising national trend. Massachusetts ranked 36th by foreclosure rate in the first half of 2026, and its filings were 20 percent lower than two years earlier, while filings nationally rose 28 percent (ATTOM Data Solutions). Its serious delinquency rate, 0.6 percent at the end of 2025, was below the national 0.9 percent and tied for 40th among the states and the District of Columbia.
- Springfield and Hampden County are the year-round story. Hampden County ranks second at 52.0 and has the highest score of any county that is not a second-home market in all five versions of the index. Its 90-day delinquency rate, 1.2 percent, is the highest published rate of any Massachusetts county. In August 2026, ATTOM listed Hampden, Plymouth, Franklin, and Bristol counties in its Massachusetts entry on foreclosure filings.
- Dukes County, which includes Martha’s Vineyard, tops the index. It ranks first at 79.9 in every version of the index, and in Dukes 51.6 percent of homeowners with a mortgage spend 30 percent or more of their income on housing, the highest share of any county. It is also a second-home market, where 54.4 percent of homes are held for seasonal use.
- Two more second-home counties rank near the top. Berkshire County grades Moderate at 45.2 and ranks third, and Nantucket County ranks fourth at 43.9, just below the Moderate line. Neither grade holds in every version.
- Greater Boston scores lowest. Middlesex County (14.7) and Norfolk County (20.5) have the two lowest scores, and Middlesex, Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk, Hampshire, and Barnstable counties grade Lower in every version.
Methodology
Three limits to read first
We state these before the method because they shape how the Massachusetts results should be read.
Four second-home counties, including the top one. Median days on market is half of the market-softness input, and in second-home markets it is likely inflated by vacation homes that sit longer on the market. Statewide, 3.7 percent of Massachusetts homes are held for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use. We flag a county as a second-home market when that share is 5 percent or more, the same cutoff we used in Oklahoma. Four counties clear it: Nantucket (55.0 percent), Dukes (54.4), Barnstable (33.1), and Berkshire (11.5). Plymouth County, at 3.7 percent, is the next county below the line. Dukes stays first in every version of the index, so its score does not rest on days on market alone.
Delinquency data for 11 of 14 counties. The CFPB publishes a county’s 90-day delinquency rate only when the county has enough mortgages in its sample. Three counties do not qualify: Dukes, Nantucket, and Franklin. They carry the statewide rate of 0.6 percent, so their scores rest on market softness, cost burden, and unemployment, not on a measured delinquency rate.
Unemployment estimates differ. The index uses the Census five-year unemployment estimate, which covers 2020 to 2024 and includes the pandemic shutdowns. In some counties it differs sharply from the current rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Suffolk County it runs above the current rate, 6.3 percent against 4.5 percent. In Nantucket County it runs below it, 4.3 percent against 7.6 percent. With current unemployment, Nantucket rises from fourth to second and grades Elevated, and we treat its grade as less firm.
We kept the standard formula anyway. Changing the method state by state would break the comparability that makes the series useful, and disclosing where the result is fragile is more useful to readers than tuning it away.
Data and sources
We built the index entirely from public and openly licensed data, and we cite each source at the point of use. Market conditions come from Realtor.com Economic Research (county listing data through September 2026). Housing tenure, mortgage status, cost burden, seasonal homes, county housing counts, and unemployment come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five-year estimates (2020 to 2024). Mortgage delinquency comes from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Mortgage Performance Trends (latest data December 2025). Current county unemployment for the sensitivity test comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics. Statewide filing counts, national ranks, and trends come from ATTOM Data Solutions’ published foreclosure market reports. Foreclosure petition rates by community come from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s Housing Stability Monitor, which uses Warren Group data. Every dataset we used is free and publicly available.
Building the index
The Massachusetts Foreclosure Risk Index uses the same formula as every state in this series, a weighted blend of four signals, each chosen because it precedes or predicts foreclosure among homeowners who carry a mortgage:
35%
The share of active listings with a price cut and the median days a home sits on the market. A soft market matters because a homeowner in trouble who cannot sell quickly has fewer ways to avoid foreclosure. See the note on second-home counties above.
30%
The share of owners with a mortgage who spend 30 percent or more of household income on housing. This is direct payment stress on the exact population that can be foreclosed on.
20%
The 90-day-or-more delinquency rate, the clearest early warning that foreclosures are coming. Published for 11 of Massachusetts’s 14 counties. See the note above.
15%
A secondary driver. We hold its weight down deliberately, because unemployment also captures renters and therefore dilutes a signal meant to describe homeowners.
We normalized each signal across the 14 counties on a 0-to-1 scale, where 0 is the lowest value in that set and 1 is the highest, then applied the weights above and multiplied by 100. The result is a relative score: it ranks Massachusetts counties against one another, not against a national or absolute standard. We then graded each county by its score, Elevated for 50.0 or above, Moderate for 44.0 to 49.9, and Lower for anything below 44.0. Two counties land in the Elevated tier, one in Moderate, and 11 in Lower. The two Elevated counties hold 7.1 percent of the state’s homes.
To test how much the results depend on any one input, we scored the counties five ways: the standard index; the standard index with current Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment, the 12 published months from August 2025 through August 2026, in place of the Census five-year estimate; the index with delinquency removed and its weight spread proportionally across the other three signals; the index with market softness measured by price cuts alone; and price cuts alone combined with current BLS unemployment. When we call a finding robust in this report, it holds in all five.
Other limitations
The index is relative. A Lower grade means lower measured risk than other Massachusetts counties, not low risk in absolute terms, and Massachusetts as a whole has a low foreclosure rate by national standards. The index also measures leading pressure, not completed foreclosures or filings, so it will not match any single month’s filing counts. With only 14 counties, a small change in one county’s inputs can move several ranks. Counties that tie at the published one-decimal score share a rank.
Findings
The index
Ranked from most to least risk on the standard formula. Read the daggered second-home counties with the limits above in mind.
Springfield and Hampden County
Hampden County, home to Springfield, Holyoke, and Chicopee, scores 52.0 and ranks second. It has the highest score of any county that is not a second-home market in all five versions of the index, and only 0.7 percent of its homes are held for seasonal use. Its 90-day delinquency rate, 1.2 percent, is the highest published rate of any Massachusetts county and double the statewide rate. In Hampden, 19.7 percent of listings carry a price cut, the second-highest share of any county, and its current unemployment rate, 5.6 percent, is the second-highest of any county.
The grade is not fully firm. Hampden grades Elevated on the standard index and on both price-cut versions, Moderate with current unemployment, and Lower when delinquency is removed, because its high delinquency rate is what lifts its score. Other data point the same way. From July through December 2025, an estimated 1,960 Massachusetts households were issued foreclosure petitions, which start the foreclosure process, and there were 433 foreclosure deeds statewide. Springfield accounted for 109 of those petitions, or 3.79 for every 1,000 owner households, more than three times the statewide average of 1.18, and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership reports that Hampden “currently has the highest rate of eviction filings among all Massachusetts counties by a sizable margin.” In August 2026, ATTOM listed Hampden among four Massachusetts counties in its monthly report on foreclosure rates by state.
Dukes County and the second-home counties
Dukes County, which includes Martha’s Vineyard, scores 79.9 and ranks first in all five versions of the index, 27.9 points ahead of Hampden. In Dukes, 51.6 percent of homeowners with a mortgage spend 30 percent or more of their income on housing, the highest share of any county, and listings have been on the market a median of 99 days, the longest of any county. According to the state’s housing office, the median home sale price on Martha’s Vineyard was over $1.4 million in 2024. Dukes is also a second-home market, where 54.4 percent of homes are held for seasonal use, and its delinquency rate is not published, so its score rests on cost burden, market softness, and unemployment.
Nantucket County ranks fourth at 43.9, just below the Moderate line. It has the highest share of seasonal homes of any county, 55.0 percent, and the second-highest cost-burden share, 46.7 percent. With current unemployment it rises to second and grades Elevated, but on price cuts alone it falls to 12th. Berkshire County, home to Pittsfield, grades Moderate at 45.2 and ranks third, with a published delinquency rate of 1.1 percent, tied with Bristol for the second-highest of any county. It grades Lower on three of the four other versions. Barnstable County, home to Hyannis, ranks 10th at 32.3 and grades Lower in every version, and its published delinquency rate, 0.3 percent, is the lowest of any county.
Bristol, Plymouth, Worcester, and Franklin
Bristol County, home to New Bedford, Fall River, and Taunton, ranks fifth at 41.5 and grades Lower on the standard index, but it grades Elevated when market softness is measured by price cuts alone, and its published delinquency rate, 1.1 percent, is tied for the second-highest of any county. In the second half of 2025, New Bedford had 1.95 foreclosure petitions for every 1,000 owner households and Fall River 1.91, both above the statewide average. Plymouth County, home to Brockton, ranks eighth at 35.8, and Brockton had 3.35 petitions per 1,000 owner households over the same period. Worcester County ranks seventh at 36.4, and 21.3 percent of its listings carry a price cut, the highest share of any county, and it too grades Elevated on price cuts alone. Franklin County, home to Greenfield, ranks sixth at 37.2. Bristol, Plymouth, and Franklin were the other three counties ATTOM listed for Massachusetts in August 2026.
Greater Boston
The lowest scores belong to the counties around Boston. Middlesex County, home to Cambridge and Lowell and the state’s largest county by number of homes, 664,267, ranks last at 14.7, and Norfolk County, home to Quincy, ranks 13th at 20.5. Essex County, home to Lawrence and Lynn, ranks 12th at 26.0. Suffolk County, home to Boston, ranks ninth at 35.0. All four grade Lower in every version of the index, as do Hampshire and Barnstable counties. In the third quarter of 2026, ATTOM listed Barnstable, Berkshire, Suffolk, and Essex counties in its Massachusetts entry on zombie foreclosures, homes left vacant during the foreclosure process. The state’s zombie share, 1.9 percent, was below the national 3.3 percent and rested on 54 homes.
How today compares with the last crisis
In 2009, 36,119 Massachusetts properties had a foreclosure filing, 1.33 percent of the state’s housing units, against 2.21 percent nationally. That rate ranked Massachusetts 22nd (RealtyTrac). The 2009 total was 18.54 percent lower than in 2008 and 103.64 percent higher than in 2007, so 2008 had more filings than 2009. From those reported changes, we estimate about 44,340 properties with a filing in 2008 and about 17,740 in 2007. The published year-end reports we use do not give Massachusetts totals for 2010 through 2025, so the chart shows those years as a gap rather than estimating them. The 2020 year-end report does give one timeline figure: in the fourth quarter of 2020, Massachusetts had one of the five longest average times to foreclose of any state, 1,223 days (ATTOM). At its first-half pace, Massachusetts is on track for about 5,440 properties with a filing in 2026, roughly 15 percent of the 2009 total.
If you are a Massachusetts homeowner facing foreclosure
This report is a market analysis, not legal advice, but the data points to a few things worth knowing. Under Massachusetts law, a lender can sell a home under the mortgage’s power of sale “upon breach of condition and without action,” that is, without a foreclosure lawsuit, but it must first publish notice of the sale in a local newspaper once a week for three weeks, the first at least 21 days before the sale, and send notice by registered mail at least 14 days before the sale (G.L. c. 244, § 14). Before that, the owner of a principal residence has a 90-day right to cure a missed payment by paying the amounts due, once in any five-year period (G.L. c. 244, § 35A). For certain loans, such as loans with an introductory rate of three years or less or with interest-only payments, the lender must make a good-faith effort to avoid foreclosure before it publishes notice of a sale, and the process for deciding on a loan modification can take up to 150 days (G.L. c. 244, § 35B).
A lender may also file a Servicemembers case in the Land Court or the Superior Court, asking the court to determine whether anyone with an ownership interest in the home is entitled to protections under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The Land Court describes filing one as “one of the steps a bank or other mortgage holder takes before foreclosing on a property,” and notes that a Servicemembers case “is not a foreclosure,” and that filing one “does not make it too late for the borrower to apply for a loan modification or to look into other foreclosure prevention options” (Massachusetts Land Court).
Help is available. The HOPE Hotline, 888-995-HOPE (4673), has counselors available 24 hours a day, and if your auction is within seven business days, the Division of Banks’ imminent foreclosure line, 617-956-1501, can ask for a 60-day delay of the auction if the home is your primary residence and you have not asked for a delay before, though a delay is not guaranteed (Division of Banks). The Attorney General’s Consumer Hotline is (617) 727-8400 (Attorney General’s Office). A HUD-approved housing counselor can review your options: call (800) 569-4287 to find one near you (HUD). The state’s Homeowner Assistance Fund is now closed.
The full data
All 14 counties, from highest to lowest Foreclosure Risk Index. An asterisk on the delinquency rate marks a county where the Massachusetts statewide rate was substituted because its own rate is not separately reported. A dagger marks a second-home county, where seasonal homes are 5 percent or more of housing. Unemployment is the five-year Census estimate used in the index. Counties that tie at the published score share a rank.
| Rank | County | FRI | Grade | Price cuts | Median DOM | Cost burden | 90+ delinq | Unemployment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dukes † | 79.9 | Elevated | 16.9% | 99 | 51.6% | 0.6*% | 6.6% |
| 2 | Hampden | 52.0 | Elevated | 19.7% | 39 | 31.5% | 1.2% | 6.0% |
| 3 | Berkshire † | 45.2 | Moderate | 15.6% | 70 | 29.0% | 1.1% | 5.4% |
| 4 | Nantucket † | 43.9 | Lower | 9.9% | 84 | 46.7% | 0.6*% | 4.3% |
| 5 | Bristol | 41.5 | Lower | 17.6% | 42 | 29.4% | 1.1% | 5.5% |
| 6 | Franklin | 37.2 | Lower | 18.5% | 48 | 32.9% | 0.6*% | 5.4% |
| 7 | Worcester | 36.4 | Lower | 21.3% | 45 | 28.2% | 0.7% | 5.3% |
| 8 | Plymouth | 35.8 | Lower | 17.5% | 45 | 31.7% | 0.8% | 5.1% |
| 9 | Suffolk | 35.0 | Lower | 14.5% | 50 | 32.7% | 0.5% | 6.3% |
| 10 | Barnstable † | 32.3 | Lower | 16.7% | 56 | 36.9% | 0.3% | 5.0% |
| 11 | Hampshire | 28.7 | Lower | 17.7% | 55 | 27.5% | 0.6% | 5.0% |
| 12 | Essex | 26.0 | Lower | 15.7% | 39 | 32.8% | 0.5% | 5.1% |
| 13 | Norfolk | 20.5 | Lower | 14.6% | 43 | 28.0% | 0.6% | 4.9% |
| 14 | Middlesex | 14.7 | Lower | 17.6% | 37 | 27.2% | 0.4% | 4.4% |
What we will watch
We plan to update this index quarterly, beginning with the first quarter of 2027. Three things will tell us where Massachusetts goes from here: whether the statewide delinquency rate, which rose from 0.4 percent at the end of 2023 to 0.6 percent at the end of 2025, keeps rising; whether filings, which rose 3 percent over the past year against 21 percent nationally, stay flat; and whether Hampden County’s delinquency rate and Springfield’s petition rate pull further away from the rest of the state.
Sources and data
- Foreclosure activity and trend. ATTOM Data Solutions, 2026 Mid-Year U.S. Foreclosure Market Report (published July 16, 2026), U.S. Foreclosure Rates by State, August 2026 (published September 18, 2026), and Zombie Foreclosure Rates by State, Q3 2026 (published September 4, 2026). Used for statewide filing counts, the national rank, the one-year and two-year changes, the zombie share, and the counties listed for August filings and third-quarter zombie foreclosures.
- Foreclosure petitions. Massachusetts Housing Partnership, Housing Stability Monitor (posted May 14, 2026, data through December 2025, from Warren Group data). Used for community petition rates and the Hampden eviction-filing finding.
- Historical record. RealtyTrac, 2009 Year-End Foreclosure Market Report (via the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission archive), and the ATTOM year-end report for 2020. Used for the 2009 total, rate, and rank, the changes from 2008 and 2007, and the time to foreclose.
- Housing market softness. Realtor.com Economic Research, county inventory core metrics through September 2026.
- Housing, mortgage status, cost burden, seasonal homes, and unemployment. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey five-year estimates, 2020 to 2024.
- Current unemployment. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, the 12 published months from August 2025 through August 2026 (BLS published no October 2025 figures). Used for the sensitivity test and the current-rate comparisons.
- Mortgage delinquency. CFPB Mortgage Performance Trends, state and county data through December 2025. Used for the 90-or-more day delinquency rates and the national comparison.
- Local context. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, Martha’s Vineyard Housing Snapshot.
- Foreclosure process. Massachusetts General Laws c. 244, § 14, § 35A, and § 35B, and the Massachusetts Land Court. Help resources from the Division of Banks, the Attorney General’s Office, HUD, and the Homeowner Assistance Fund page.
About NestCash
NestCash buys houses for cash in twelve states and publishes original housing and distressed-property research across U.S. markets. Our original housing research helps homeowners, buyers, and investors understand local market conditions. This report may be cited and its charts embedded with attribution to NestCash.
John is the Founder of NestCash and a leading voice in real estate investing and housing market strategy. With experience across 12 states, he helps buyers, sellers, and investors make smarter decisions using real-world insight and market data.