Foreclosures On The Decline

WLRN Public Media | By Luis Hernandez

Published July 16, 2015 at 1:36 PM EDT

The latest report from Realtytrac shows foreclosures are down throughout Florida, though some challenges remain in south Florida.

Florida remains one of the states with the highest foreclosure rate, according to a new report from real estate firm RealtyTrac. The Sunshine State has four of the five metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates: Tampa, Lakeland, Jacksonville and Ocala.

But compared to last year, foreclosures are down and, according to Daren Blomquist, VP at RealtyTrac, a lot of the bad loans that led the nation into the housing crisis are cycling out of the system.

Blomquist says one of the brighter spots of the foreclosure story in Florida is that there are fewer homes starting the process. Homes at the beginning steps of foreclosure are now at the pre-crisis levels in the state.

In the first half of the year there were just over 24,000 properties in the foreclosure process, compared to 2006 when there were more than 45,000 properties starting the process in the first six months.

Some of the "not so good" news in Florida are the bank repossessions. That number is on the rise. There were more than 42,000 of those in the state since January.

Banks and homeowners are waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision on the statute of limitations on the length of time banks have gone without foreclosing. This decision will be huge either way. Blomquist explains in the sound bite below.

In Palm Beach and Broward counties bank repossessions are up. They're down in Miami-Dade. But, in all three counties these sorts of repossessions are still above historic norms.

Blomquist says the newest report should be seen as good news, but he says the bank repossessions that are going up should be a good reminder that we need to be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

"Even though things are feeling much better now," he says, "10 years later we're still dealing with that last housing crisis, even in the midst of a housing recovery."

Blomquist goes on to say that we are entering an era where home values are becoming more volatile, particularly in markets like south Florida.

Other information from the latest Realtytrac report:

Florida foreclosure activity in the first half of 2015 decreased by 22 percent from a year ago, but the state still posted the nation's highest foreclosure rate - one in every 95.
Among the nation's 20 largest metro areas, Miami showed one of the biggest decreases (30 percent) in foreclosure activity in the first six months of 2015.