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The number of foreclosure filings continued to fade in Wisconsin during the first quarter of 2014, falling 24% and staying at pre-recession levels.

Court records show there were 3,427 foreclosure filings in the first quarter of the year, down from 4,510 in the first three months of 2013.

The drop-off in filings in the first quarter follows a year in which new foreclosure cases plunged almost 32% in the state.

The peak for foreclosure filings in the state was 28,532 in 2009. Last year there were 15,563.

Russell Kashian, a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater economics professor who tracks foreclosures in the state, said there is no question the foreclosure crisis is over. There isn't anything on the horizon in the economy that would signal a revival, he said.

Nonetheless, Kashian said, it's important to monitor filings "when things are calm because otherwise we don't understand when a crisis hits."

"The economy turns quickly sometimes," he said.

UW-Whitewater's Fiscal and Economic Research Center was asked in 2008 to start keeping track of foreclosure data, which was after the crisis had already started.

"That's why we continue to stay on top of it, because there will be a next time, and we'd like to start to notice it immediately when it happens," Kashian said.

Foreclosure filings in the seven counties of southeast Wisconsin — Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha — mirrored the overall state trend, declining 23.3% in the first quarter, to 1,581 from 2,063 in the same period a year earlier.

In Milwaukee County, foreclosure filings totaled fewer than 300 for the fifth consecutive month, at 289. During the worst of the foreclosure crisis in 2010, Milwaukee County was averaging more than 600 a month.

However, even though the number of new filings is falling, the city of Milwaukee continues to wrestle with foreclosed properties that have become a blight on neighborhoods. The city takes ownership of houses through tax foreclosures, but then faces the task of selling the properties or demolishing the worst of them.

Currently, Milwaukee owns about 1,200 homes taken through tax foreclosure, most of them on the north side.