Florida Foreclosed Homes
Only a few years ago, Florida could boast of being at the top of most real estate hotspot lists and surveys. However, today the state holds a much less prestigious distinction - ranking #2 for the highest foreclosure counts in the country. For well over a year, the number of foreclosed Florida homes has been growing consistently placing the state in one of the top five spots for foreclosure filings nationwide.
Florida Foreclosure Trends
In the first quarter of 2008, Florida foreclosure filings were still trending upward with a 17 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2007, and a 178 percent increase from a year ago. Orlando Florida foreclosures showed an even greater increase, jumping nearly 250 percent in the first quarter of 2007 from the previous year. While Tampa Florida foreclosures are also up, the area has not experienced the more notable increases found in Jacksonville, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami and the Sarasota-Bradenton area. Central Florida had approximately 4,000 home repossessions reported in the first quarter of 2008 – over double the count in the same period a year earlier.
Although the foreclosure rates in Florida rank among the highest in the nation, some experts feel the number is under reported. Why? The Orlando Business Journal reports that many lenders have yet to send foreclosure notices to homeowners who have missed over 12 months of payments, even though in a normal real estate market homes are typically repossessed by the bank after only a few months. The reason could be that many lenders in Florida don't want the ever-growing number of foreclosed properties to become the bank's assets. It's much more beneficial for the bank to try to work it out with the borrower vs. foreclosing on a property and then trying to sell it in today's market. Plus by not foreclosing on delinquent homes, banks avoid high legal fees.
In addition, The New York Times reports that it can take months, even years, for some properties to go through the foreclosure process in Florida because of the backlogged local courts. The result is that a growing number of properties in Florida have been deserted. Mortgage companies, faced with rising inventories of foreclosed and abandoned homes, are hiring contractors to try to maintain houses that owners can no longer afford to keep and that no one is interested in buying. The local and state governments in Florida have become so alarmed about the lack of upkeep of foreclosed homes in Florida – which drag down real estate values throughout the neighborhood – that they have begun enforcing levying fines on mortgage companies if the properties they have repossessed have been degraded. Increased fines, legal fees, abandoned home upkeep costs – all reasons why lenders in Florida appear to be giving the homeowners more time to get back on their feet.