Research Note · Published 2026-06-03
Behind Indiana's #1 Foreclosure Rate: A County-Level Breakdown
Authored by Carson Nordmann, Founder of Keystone Court Data. See our editorial standards.
Indiana recorded the highest foreclosure rate in the United States in Q1 2026, with one foreclosure filing per 739 housing units, according to ATTOM Data Solutions (Q1 2026 Foreclosure Market Report). The state's foreclosure rate has grown roughly 47% since 2024, compared to 18% nationally over the same window. National coverage has framed this as a state-level story; this note breaks the volume down to where it actually concentrates: the courthouse docket, county by county.
year-to-date through early June 2026 from our scraping pipeline. Indiana has 92 counties total; our coverage focuses on the highest-volume metros.
The state-level number masks heavy concentration in 4 counties
Indiana's foreclosure activity is not evenly distributed. Four counties account for roughly two-thirds of the state's tracked filings in our coverage area:
| County | Major city | Filings (2026 YTD) |
|---|---|---|
| Lake County | Gary / Hammond / East Chicago | 175 |
| Marion County | Indianapolis | 116 |
| Vanderburgh County | Evansville | 57 |
| St. Joseph County | South Bend | 50 |
| Hendricks County | Avon / Plainfield (Indianapolis suburbs) | 30 |
| Madison County | Anderson | 22 |
| Johnson County | Greenwood / Franklin | 20 |
| Porter County | Valparaiso | 18 |
| Delaware County | Muncie | 16 |
| Clark / Allen / Tippecanoe | Jeffersonville / Fort Wayne / Lafayette | 30 |
Raw counts from our courthouse scraping pipeline before subscriber-side deduplication. Includes all parties named in filings (individuals and entities). Source: Indiana Court Filings Intelligence. Bulk CSV: /reports/data/in-court-filings.csv. Methodology: /reports/methodology.
The plaintiffs (lenders) driving Indiana's foreclosure volume
Behind every foreclosure filing is a plaintiff: the mortgage holder or servicer pursuing the action. The most active plaintiffs in Indiana foreclosure complaints in 2026:
| Rank | Plaintiff | Filings (2026 YTD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | U.S. Bank N.A. | 21 |
| 2 | Freedom Mortgage Corporation | 17 |
| 3 | PennyMac Loan Services, LLC | 13 |
| 4 | Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC | 11 |
| 5 | U.S. Bank Trust N.A. | 9 |
| 6 | Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB | 8 |
| 7 | Rocket Mortgage, LLC | 7 |
| 8 | MidFirst Bank | 7 |
| 9 | Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC | 7 |
| 10 | The Huntington National Bank | 5 |
Plaintiff names normalized to collapse common legal-suffix variants. Full ranked list (top 50): /reports/foreclosure-plaintiffs-rankings.
Local-economy context
Indiana's state unemployment rate sat at 2.8% as of April 2026 per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, below the national average. The foreclosure surge therefore is not primarily an employment story. It tracks more closely with the post-pandemic rate environment, accumulated inflation pressure on borrowers, and concentrated distress in older industrial metros (Gary / Hammond / East Chicago corridor in Lake County, Indianapolis, Evansville).
Methodology note: how our numbers compare to ATTOM's
Our 563 verified Indiana foreclosure-related filings YTD measure something more specific than ATTOM's statewide total. The two methodologies complement each other rather than contradict.
ATTOM's Q1 2026 statewide count covers every stage of the foreclosure process: pre-foreclosure default notices, notices of trustee sale, scheduled auctions, and bank-owned REO transfers. Aggregated across all 92 Indiana counties from multiple data feeds.
Our count measures one specific stage — the foreclosure complaint (lis pendens) filed in Indiana Circuit / Superior Court. We scrape these directly from county dockets the day they file. Our coverage is currently 12 active counties (out of 92), and our data window starts mid-February 2026 (the system went live then).
For investors looking for the earliest-stage signal — the day a complaint hits the docket, before the homeowner has retained counsel, before any default notice mailing — court records are the leading indicator. For total-market-size statistics across all stages, ATTOM's aggregated feed is broader. Both are accurate measurements of different slices of foreclosure activity.
What the news coverage misses
Most national coverage of Indiana's foreclosure rate stops at the state-level number. From a real estate operator's perspective, the actionable detail is at the county level: which courthouse, which lenders, which ZIP codes. Lake County alone accounts for 29% of our tracked Indiana foreclosure-related filings, with heavy concentration in the Gary (46402, 46408), East Chicago (46312), and Hammond (46320, 46324) ZIP codes.
The non-resident-owner share (owners whose mailing address differs from the property address) is 42% in Lake County, suggesting a meaningful portion of the distress involves out-of-area landlords and inherited properties rather than primary residences. That's a different deal profile than the typical "homeowner in trouble" framing.
For investors and journalists
Full county-level breakdown with monthly trend, value distribution, geographic concentration, lender activity, lifecycle data (median days complaint to served, complaint to judgment), and local-market benchmarking: Indiana Court Filings Intelligence report. Bulk CSV download available at /reports/data/in-court-filings.csv. Direct programmatic access via the public API endpoint.
Citation
Keystone Court Data, "Behind Indiana's #1 Foreclosure Rate: A County-Level Breakdown," 2026-06-03, https://keystonecourtdata.com/reports/indiana-foreclosure-2026-county-breakdown
National rate context: ATTOM Q1 2026 Foreclosure Market Report. Unemployment: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (April 2026).