Florida Foreclosure Starts Down 27 Percent in April

by Peter Thomas Ricci

May 13, 2013

The news was relatively good for Florida’s foreclosure markets in April, with foreclosure starts down by double-digit amounts.

Florida’s foreclosure markets showed continued improvement in RealtyTrac’s U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for April, though the state still has some ways to go.

Foreclosure starts for the Sunshine State fell 27 percent from March to April, though it maintained the second highest foreclosure rate in the U.S., with one in every 363 homes receiving a filing. Furthermore, five Florida cities remained in the top 10 for highest foreclosure rate: Ocala at No. 2 (one in every 225 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Miami at No. 3 (one in every 269 housing units); Orlando at No. 4 (one in every 287); Jacksonville at No. 7 (one in every 345 housing units); and Tampa at No. 9 (one in every 384 housing units).

Piper Rothan, a Realtor with The Keyes Company in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, said that though short sales are still pending on the open marketplace, REO transactions are increasingly rare.

“With the foreclosure inventory, most of the listings that are active are in the retail market,” she said, adding that with how proactive investors have been in buying REOs, some banks do not even list their foreclosed properties on the open market and instead sell them to private investors, a process that can irritate homebuyers.

National Foreclosure Activity at Six-Year Low

On the national scene, the news was encouraging:

RealtyTrac reported that foreclosure filings were down 5 percent from March to April and 23 percent from April 2012; that’s the lowest level of foreclosure activity since February 2007.
The number of U.S. properties starting the foreclosure process fell 4 percent monthly and 28 percent yearly.
Lender repossessions were down 20 percent from March and 32 percent from April 2012, falling to their lowest mark since July 2007.
Also, RealtyTrac calculated that 11.3 million mortgages remain seriously underwater; though that is 26 percent of all mortgages, it represents a 12 percent decline from last year.

Daren Blomquist, the vice president at Realtytrac, said April’s number indicate slow, steady progress for the nation’s foreclosure markets.

“The April numbers indicate that the pig is moving through the python when it comes to deferred foreclosures in judicial foreclosure states,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Scheduled foreclosure auctions in judicial states jumped to a 30-month high in April, evidence that lenders are serious about moving forward with completing the foreclosure process — either through repossession or sale to a third party investor at public auction.”