Southern Florida Repossession Property Inventories to Rise

Repossession property inventories in Southern Florida are expected to rise further in the coming months, based on an analysis of real estate and foreclosures data in Florida.

In the first 6 months of 2009, over 52,000 foreclosure cases have been filed by mortgage lenders in Southern Florida. Housing analysts predicted that over 100,000 foreclosure actions will be filed in the region in 2009.

The foreclosure actions filed in the first 6 months of 2009 represented a rise of 33 percent from the 38,000 foreclosure actions filed in the first 6 months of 2008 and a seven-fold increase compared to foreclosure actions in the first 6 months of 2007.

A real estate consultant in the region predicted that if the current foreclosure pace continues throughout the last months of 2009, South Florida will struggle with record numbers of foreclosure cases and repossession property units.

In May, a national survey of foreclosure filings ranked Florida third in a list of states with the highest foreclosure rates.

One housing unit out of every 148 units was hit with a foreclosure action. Nearly 59,000 housing units were hit with foreclosure filings, with more than 6,000 units already bought back by banks and added to their repossession property inventories.

Foreclosure filings in Southern Florida have been rising at a rate of almost 2,200 each week while repossession property inventories have been falling at a rate of around 900 each week.

The reason for the decrease in current repossession inventories despite the increase in foreclosure filings is the drawn-out time spent from the date a foreclosure case is filed to the date the property becomes repossessed.

According to foreclosure experts, a typical foreclosure process takes about 6 to 9 months to get completed and costs about $40,000 to $80,000.

In Broward County, 22,730 foreclosure actions were filed, the highest number among county filings. Palm Beach had nearly 15,000 filings while Miami-Dade had 14,474 filings.

Based on number of pre-foreclosures and repossession properties, Florida ranked second in the first 6 months of 2009 compared to other states, with more than 225,000 foreclosure actions filed. The number of repossession property units reached 53,548, a jump from the 43,845 units repossessed in the first 6 months of 2008.

Across the U.S., over 1 million foreclosure actions were filed in the first 6 months of 2009, with more than 435,000 units already added by lenders to their repossession property inventories.

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