DESPITE LEADING NATION IN FORECLOSURES, FLORIDA HOUSING MARKET POSTS STRONG NUMBERS

DESPITE LEADING NATION IN FORECLOSURES, FLORIDA HOUSING MARKET POSTS STRONG NUMBERS

You would think that since Florida leads the nation in foreclosures that the news is all bad. Not exactly the case I am happy to report. Even though South Florida is the top place for foreclosures, the numbers are quickly dropping. In Palm Beach County they fell a whopping 82% last month. As for new cases, 238 were reported in June as compared with 1,313 a year ago. This has been trending in the right direction for the past 6 months, with the number of pending foreclosures down 24% in Palm Beach County. For some reason Broward County has lagged behind, posting a decline of 13% in pending foreclosures for the same 6 month period. Perhaps the biggest indication of economic recovery can be seen with the number of homes going to auction in Palm Beach County in June. That number is down 38% from one year ago, and marks the first time that number has declined in 13 consecutive months. That is not the case yet in Broward County, where both homes auctioned and as well as bank repossessions continued to increase. But this could finally signal that the backlog of troubled properties is coming to end, or at least a place where all the inventory is on the table. What I mean by that is banks withheld properties from going into foreclosure so as to keep them off their books until the backlog became more manageable. We have all heard the stories of people living in their homes for 3 years without paying anything, but that also had to do with the time each case used to take, sometimes up to 3 years. The new fast track law  that was passed last year must be working. While there is still much work to be done here, it is encouraging that progress is finally being made. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.