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Florida remains the top foreclosure state.
More homes were lost to foreclosure in Florida than in any other state in the nation in the 12 months ended in May, with 103,000 Florida residences either auctioned off or taken back by lenders during the period, according to CoreLogic.
More foreclosures are on the horizon for Florida, even as the one-time epicenter of the housing crisis has been posting consistent gains in home prices and seeing housing sales volumes go up.
Florida had the highest foreclosure inventory in the nation in May, with 8.8 percent of mortgaged homes in some stage of the foreclosure process, the Irvine, Calif.-based residential data firm said. That level marked a 2.9 percentage point decline from a year earlier.
CoreLogic said the national foreclosure picture was brighter, with about one million homes in some stage of foreclosure in May, a 29 percent drop from a year earlier. That news helped lift shares of publicly traded homebuilders like Miami-based Lennar Corp., whose shares closed at $35.01, up $1.96 or 5.93 percent on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday.
One reason Florida’s foreclosure inventory is so high (the national average in May was 2.6 percent) is its foreclosure cases take so long. Florida handles its foreclosure cases in the courts, typically resulting in a more protracted process than the administrative proceedings used in some other states.
Mortgage loans also continue to sour in Florida at a high rate: For May, the share of Florida mortgages that were seriously delinquent — behind by 90 days or more — was 13.3 percent, the highest rate of any state and more than double the national average of 5.6 percent, CoreLogic said.
After Florida, California ranked No. 2 in the number of homes lost to foreclosure in the year ended in May, with foreclosures completed on 76,000 residences there during that period.
New Jersey came in second to Florida in foreclosure inventory, with 6 percent of mortgaged homes in some phase of foreclosure in May.
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