Wayne County, Indiana Court Filings Intelligence

• Filing volume holding steady (-4.9%) — last 2 complete months (58 filings) vs prior 2 complete months (61 filings). Excludes the current calendar month (in progress).
• Max gross cap rate 14.8% at HUD Fair Market Rent — $11,472/year (2BR FMR × 12) on the $77,400 median estimated market value. Section-8-eligible rent ceiling; real-market rent typically exceeds FMR; excludes operating costs (taxes, insurance, maintenance, vacancy, management).
• 39.6% of filings are Divorce — the dominant lead category in Wayne County during the observed window.

About Wayne County

Wayne County is a county located in east central Indiana, United States, on the border with Ohio. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 66,553. The county seat is Richmond. Wayne County comprises the Richmond, Indiana Micropolitan Statistical Area. Richmond hosts Earlham College, a small private liberal arts college.

Source: Wikipedia

At a glance

Filing type breakdown

Each row is a distinct case as recorded on the county docket.

Monthly filing activity

Each row reflects new filings entering the dataset that month, after ownership verification. Most recent month may be partial.

Geographic concentration by ZIP

Top 3 ZIPs in Wayne County account for 0.3% of all tracked filings, showing where distressed real estate activity clusters.

Based on filings with a parseable property address (0% of Wayne County filings).

Property value distribution

Source: third-party property enrichment (1% coverage on Wayne County filings). Median $77,400; mean $88,083.

Day-of-week filing pattern

Filings cluster Monday through Friday, with weekend filings essentially absent (court system closed). Computed for 3902 filings with a parseable date.

Building characteristics

Per-property details from third-party property enrichment, aggregated across the 26 filings with characteristic data:

Housing stock + distress signals

Underlying housing stock and distress indicators across all 30758 Wayne County housing units, from US Census ACS 5-year data. National reference values shown for context.

Source: US Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS 2023 5-year). National reference values are ACS 2022 5-year US totals. Why these matter: vacancy rate is the strongest single proxy for distressed inventory; mortgage-carrying share defines the risk pool exposed to rate environment; pre-1940 stock signals deferred maintenance and renovation opportunity; senior population correlates with probate pipeline depth.

Rent benchmark (HUD Fair Market Rent)

HUD sets Fair Market Rents at the metro area level — the same FMRs apply to every county within the metro. Wayne County sits within the Wayne County, IN. Used to set Section 8 voucher amounts; investors use it as a defensible rent-estimate floor for buy-to-rent underwriting.

Source: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Market Rents (None). 40th-percentile gross rent including utilities. Why this matters: Section-8-eligible tenants are a baseline demand floor for rental inventory at these price points; FMR is the official ceiling for voucher-eligible rents.

New construction (market momentum)

Annual building permits filed in Wayne County from the US Census Building Permits Survey. Trend signal on whether new housing demand is accelerating or contracting in this market.

Source: US Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, annual cumulative data. Why this matters: permits trending up signals strong demand for new inventory; permits contracting at the same time foreclosure activity rises indicates broader market softening (deals price differently). Multifamily share shows whether the market is densifying or holding to single-family stock.

Macro context: state home prices and national delinquency

Wayne County filings should be read against the broader housing-market backdrop. Indiana state home-price trend and the national mortgage-delinquency rate are the two macro signals most directly relevant to foreclosure exposure.

Sources: Federal Housing Finance Agency state house price indices (FRED series INSTHPI); Federal Reserve Board, Mortgage Delinquency 30+Day Rate on Single-Family Residential Mortgages (FRED series DRSFRMACBS). Updated quarterly. Free public data.

Post-filing sale outcomes in Wayne County

What happens to distressed properties after a court filing? By cross-referencing each filing's property with county assessor and deed-transfer records, we track which properties sold, how long the process took, and at what price. This analysis covers 26 filings (0.7% of all 3902 filings) where parcel-level tracking is available.

Time from filing to sale

How quickly do distressed properties sell after a court filing is recorded? This distribution shows where post-filing sales cluster.

Sale rates by filing type

Not all distress types lead to property sales at the same rate. Foreclosures tend to result in eventual sales more often than probate or divorce filings.

How sales relate to the filing

Not every post-filing sale is caused by the court case. We classify each sale's relationship to the original filing so investors can focus on the highest-signal outcomes. 60.0% of confirmed sales were directly driven by the filing.

Source: county assessor and deed-transfer records cross-referenced with court filings by parcel ID. Sale outcomes tracked for 26 of 3902 filings (0.7% parcel coverage). Timing based on 5 sales with valid filing and sale dates. Prices based on 4 sales with recorded sale amounts.

Filing velocity by case type

How each distress category is trending — are foreclosures accelerating while divorces cool, or vice versa? This breakdown is only possible with direct court-record data.

Trend = recent 2-3 month volume vs prior 2-3 months (current partial month excluded). Positive = accelerating; negative = cooling.

Seasonal filing patterns

Court filings peak in Mar and are lowest in Dec. Filing volume is relatively steady year-round.

Average filings per calendar month across all observed years. Relative column shows each month as a percentage of the peak month (Mar), with a 1.4x peak-to-trough ratio.

ZIP code distress hotspots

Distress is geographically dispersed across 3 ZIP codes, with no single area dominating.

Top 3 of 3 ZIP codes with filings.

Non-resident owner analysis

Most filings (100%) involve owner-occupied properties. The relatively low absentee rate suggests distress is primarily hitting homeowners, not institutional investors.

Non-resident = owner's mailing address differs from the property address. Could indicate out-of-state landlords, inherited estates, second homes, or in-transition properties.

Distress composition and shifts

Pre-Foreclosure share is rising. High diversity in distress types suggests multiple independent factors driving court filings, not a single economic shock.

Distress diversity score: 2.06 (Shannon entropy; higher = more diverse distress sources). "Recent" = last 2 complete months; "Earlier" = all prior months.

Property Value Profile

The median assessed value of properties in court filings is $77,400. Divorce filings involve the highest-value properties (median $66,700), while Pre-Foreclosure filings trend lower (median $55,300). The largest segment (70.8%) falls in the Under $100K range.

Based on county assessor records for 24 properties with court filings (0.6% of total filings). Values are tax-assessed amounts, not market listing prices.

Distress Capital Analysis

$2,047,400 in assessed property value is currently tied up in 24 court-filed properties. Divorce filings represent the largest capital pool ($767,500 across 11 properties).

Capital at Risk by Filing Type

Based on 24 properties with assessor valuations (0.6% of 3902 total filings). Values are county assessor estimates. Equity calculated from estimated value vs outstanding mortgage balance where available.

Market Absorption & Turnover Analysis

3,809 court filings tracked with 0 resolved (0.0% absorption rate). The court system is accumulating cases faster than they resolve, creating a growing backlog of 3,809 active cases.

Resolution by Case Type

Absorption rate measures the percentage of filed cases that have reached a terminal resolution (judgment, dismissal, settlement, or sale). A low absorption rate indicates a growing backlog of active cases in the court system. Resolution timing based on 0 resolved cases out of 3809 total filings.

Property Type Distribution

69.6% of distressed properties are classified as Single Family, followed by Duplex/Multi-Family (21.7%).

Property classifications from county assessor records for 23 properties (0.6% of total filings). Categories normalized from assessor codes.

Case Aging & Stall Analysis

3,593 cases (94.3%) have been active for over a year without resolution. 25 filings in the last <30 days represent fresh opportunities.

Case aging computed from filing date to present for unresolved cases. Resolution classified from court docket entries (judgments, settlements, dismissals, sheriff sales). Cases with a resolution event are removed from the stall count.

Quarterly Filing Volume Trends

Filing trends across 15 comparable quarters show 2,135 tracked filings in Wayne County. Most recent quarter (2026 Q1: 60) was declining vs prior (2025 Q3: 93, -35.5%).

Only comparable quarters shown (collection ramp-up periods excluded). Filing dates from verified court records. Current partial quarter excluded from trend calculations.

Repeat litigation patterns in Wayne County

Of 3,274 unique property owners in court filings, 312 (9.5%) appear in multiple cases, including 95 with 3 or more filings. The most active repeat filer has 17 cases spanning 59 months. Divorce cases have the highest repeat rate at 17.9%.

Repeat rate by case type

Analysis based on 3,274 unique owner names across court filings. Repeat filers are property owners appearing in 2 or more distinct cases.

Why these filings are invisible on most public foreclosure sites

The largest public foreclosure-aggregator interfaces surface only post-auction bank-owned properties in Indiana. Pre-foreclosure court filings are not visible to their non-paying users. Keystone tracks the court filing the day it hits the docket, weeks or months before any property reaches the auction stage those aggregators surface.

Methodology and full audit: Court-vs-aggregator coverage gap report.

Methodology and data sources

• Court filings are collected directly from Wayne County court records, which are public information.
• This dataset is the court-filing archive as collected from the county docket. The owner-of-record match and the entity-owner screen are applied to delivered leads, not to these filing counts.
• Property value figures come from third-party enrichment (1% coverage on this dataset).
• Individual case data, defendant names, and property addresses are not published. Reports show aggregated statistics only.
• The methodology page at /reports/methodology documents data sources, sample sizes, and known limitations in detail.
• This report was generated 2026-07-16 from the live database. Numbers reflect the dataset at that moment.

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