Florida still tops nation in foreclosures — but 2nd in U.S. for new ones

Florida still accounts for almost a quarter of all foreclosures in the nation but at least the Sunshine State is behind Nevada in foreclosures started in the three months that ended Sept 30, a new survey shows.

Nevada has nearly 2.5 percent of the nation’s new foreclosures, while Florida was second with nearly 2 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s quarterly National Delinquency Survey.

In contrast, North Dakota, which has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate, also was at the bottom, having only .35 percent of the U.S. foreclosure starts, the survey showed.

Broward foreclosures: A look at foreclosures by ZIP code for 2008 and 2010

Nationwide, the number of homeowners more than 90 days late with paying their mortgages are down from the recession’s peak, the study found.

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And as the economy expands and more people go back to work, the nation’s foreclosures starts should slow even more, said Mike Fratantoni, a vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Florida should also experience that foreclosure slowdown as forecasts show a modest gains for jobs created in the Sunshine State in 2012.

However, RealtyTrac Inc. showed the foreclosure filings are up in Florida in October and that lenders may be filing old cases that were once put on hold from the robo-signing scandal.

Indeed, Florida still has a mountain of foreclosures to go through — “it is still very large,” Fratantoni said.

That should take years to settle and Florida will struggle years after the nation has recovered from the foreclosure crisis, he said.

Florida’s courts remain clogged with foreclosures, Fratantoni said.

Nearly 14.5 percent of all the state’s mortgage are in foreclosure; the national average is less a third of that, the Mortgage Bankers survey shows.

 

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