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| Foreclosures triple across region 12/13/07 Foreclosures in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast tripled in November compared with a year ago as the worst housing slump in nearly two decades continued to ravage the tri-county area. In Palm Beach County, once one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation, 1,671 homeowners received foreclosure notices in November, according to the county clerk's office. That's a rate of one foreclosure for every 371 households. The county's 208 percent increase over November 2006 seemed further proof that the area's housing market had yet to hit bottom, and home sellers are likely headed for more months of frustration. Prices for homes in Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties have been dropping precipitously in recent months. But homeowners have mostly tried to hold on to boom-time prices, hoping for a turnaround - or at least for things to stabilize. For too many, however, holding on to a mortgage they can't afford in hopes of a buyer bailout has led to foreclosure. The number of foreclosures for Florida and nationwide - tracked by RealtyTrac of Irvine, Calif. - is not yet available for November. But Florida's foreclosure rate in October was one filing for every 273 households. In comparison, the U.S. rate was one foreclosure for every 555 households, according to RealtyTrac. "People are desperate," said real estate analyst Jack McCabe of McCabe Research and Consulting in Deerfield Beach, who has closely tracked the local decline. "A lot of people weren't trying to buy a house over their means, but nevertheless they got caught up in this," he said. "Now they're emptying their savings, but for a lot of people it makes sense to cut their losses." Indeed, tightened finance rules in the wake of the "subprime loan mess" plus a huge backlog of unsold homes on the market make it difficult for many cost-burdened homeowners to refinance with better terms, or to sell. In Palm Beach County, for instance, there's a four-year supply of homes for sale, according to Illustrated Properties Real Estate. That leaves foreclosure as the last unhappy option for squeezed homeowners, as climbing rates in the Treasure Coast show. In Martin County, foreclosures in November rose to 93, an increase of 210 percent compared with last year, the clerk's office said. That's a rate of one filing for every 785 households. The pain in neighboring St. Lucie County is even worse. After sitting near the top of everyone's list of booming areas for years, the county logged a November foreclosure rate that came in at one in every 306 households. According to the clerk's office, foreclosures jumped to 684, an increase of 239 percent, from the previous year. And contrary to popular thought, not all foreclosures are borrowers with exotic mortgages. "In most states, the increase in prime fixed-rate foreclosure starts is due to borrowers who will fall behind on their payments for the traditional reasons (employment, medical, marital, etc.) but who cannot sell their homes due to market conditions," Doug Duncan, chief economist and senior vice president for the Mortgage Bankers Association, said this week. November's tripling of foreclosure filings continues a trend from last month, when a deluge of factors combined to inflict what West Palm Beach Realtor Randy Bianchi calls "lots of pain" on local homeowners who fell behind on their mortgages. Those factors include declining home sales, rising inventories, tightened lending standards and a nearly dried-up pool of loan money. But the picture is not all bleak, local mortgage brokers say. "People are starting to see they can come to Florida and pick up a good deal," said Ellen Bitton, president and chief executive of Park Avenue Mortgage Group, which has six offices from Palm Beach to Manhattan. Right now the market is typically slow as "the season" gets under way, she acknowledged. "But there's more opportunity for buyers," Bitton said. "A lot of people have money." *** |