Broward and Palm Beach showed foreclosure declines

Broward County
Broward County

Housing in Broward and Palm Beach counties is about where it stood two years ago, according to a report from RealtyTrac.

Broward and Palm Beach each scored 40 on RealtyTrac’s scale ranging from zero to 100. The lower a market is, the better, in terms of five categories including affordability, unemployment rates, foreclosure starts, median home prices and percentage of “underwater” mortgages.

The two counties showed declines in foreclosure starts and increases in median home prices, but Broward and Palm Beach still rank above the national average in underwater mortgages, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

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Residents in the two counties need to devote 7 percentage points more of their incomes on average to afford the median-priced home, RealtyTrac said.

“If incomes aren’t rising in tandem with home prices, that’s going to be a bad thing for housing,” said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac. “Homes are becoming much less affordable for more people.” [Sun-Sentinel]Christopher Cameron