Thursday, July 26, 2012

Foreclosures show mixed bag


Foreclosures are on the rise again in some of the nation's largest metro areas, including Bradenton-Sarasota.

The region had 5,702 properties with a foreclosure filing during the first six months of the year, a modest 2 percent jump from the second half of 2011 and 20 percent spike from the same time last year -- when foreclosures were still slowed by lender fraud issues, according to data released by RealtyTrac that was embargoed until midnight.

One in every 70 housing units in the greater Sarasota area has been a foreclosure this year, for a rate of 1.42 percent -- placing the area 26 on RealtyTrac's national list of the 212 worst foreclosure rates.

Half of the nation’s 20 largest metro areas in terms of population documented increasing foreclosure activity from the previous six months, led by Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater with a 47 percent climb.

Foreclosure activity in the first half of 2012 was up from the previous six months in 125 of the nation’s 212 metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more.

The recent surges were fanned by an uptick in new foreclosure starts, or lis pendens, which have been rising in Southwest Florida for much of the year as banks work to process the defaults that were temporarily put on hold during the robo-signing issues.

But a subsiquent report also released Wednesday by CoreLogic suggests the numbers might not be all that bad.

Foreclosure rates in North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota fell in May from the same time last year, according to the CoreLogic data.

The report shows foreclosures represented 11 percent of all outstanding mortgage loans in the greater Sarasota area in May, a decrease from May 2011, when the rate was 12 percent. Foreclosure activity in North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota was higher than the national foreclosure rate of 3.41 percent.

The local mortgage delinquency rate also slid, with 16 percent of mortgage loans 90 days or more delinquent, a 0.67 percentage- point yearly drop.

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