Florida is on the path to foreclosure recovery — that’s according to RealtyTrac’s third-quarter report.
The number of foreclosure starts fell by 28 percent, and the number of auctions declined by 46 percent year-over-year.
Foreclosure statistics are a composite of a variety of points in a long and entangling process. RealtyTrac’s total foreclosure filings include properties with default notices, scheduled notice and bank repossessions.
In Florida, foreclosure activity decreased year-over-year for the third quarter.
The Sunshine State is far from out of the woods yet. In fact, it is second to New Jersey for the country’s highest foreclosure rate. In the Garden State, one out of every 171 properties has foreclosure looming. Nevada trails just behind Florida.
While slightly more properties in the U.S. had foreclosure filings attached to them, the number that began the foreclosure process fell, and the level of new foreclosures across the country is at its lowest level since third quarter 2005.
Nationally, those coming out the other side into REO status after lender repossession jumped by two-thirds. RealtyTrac said in the report that’s the largest year-over-year increase in bank repossessions since they started recording quarterly foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2008.
Florida’s REOs jumped by 34 percent year-over-year.
But according to a new report from CoreLogic, Florida courts excel at getting the job done: For the 12 months ending in September 2015, Florida led all 50 states for completed foreclosures, with 91,000 properties completing the painful journey. The next-highest foreclosure expert was Michigan, with the gavel swung on 45,000 properties.
The national foreclosure stats are going in the wrong direction for the second quarter in a row. After 19 consecutive quarters of year-over-year decreases, this quarter and last have seen year-over-year bumps upward.
Many economists see this trend as merely the working out of a long and complicated legal process.
Florida cities make up half of the list of the 10 cities with the highest number of housing units in foreclosure in the nation.
These five are:
- Jacksonville no. 2 (one in every 153 housing units with a foreclosure filing)
- Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach no. 3 (one in every 155)
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater no. 4 (one in every 162)
- Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach no. 5 (one in every 162)
- Lakeland-Winter Haven no. 7 (one in every 176)
- Ocala no. 8 (one in every 179).
So, if New Jersey were a city, it’s foreclosures would put it somewhere in between Miami and Lakeland. But without snow.
Even though the legal process in Florida is efficiently dispensing with repossessed homes, there’s more work to be done.
