Miami-Dade had nation’s fourth-most distressed sales in October

Miami-Dade County remained one of the country’s biggest hotspots for distressed property sales during October, though the region’s strengthening housing market is gradually flushing out such properties.

Of all the county’s home sales in October, 20.6 percent of them were distressed, according to a report from analytics company CoreLogic. That includes lender-owned homes due to foreclosure or short sales from owners trying to satisfy a debt.

The number of distressed sales in Miami-Dade has dropped by 4.6 percentage points year-over-year, but actually rose by 3.6 percentage points compared to September.

Ahead of Miami-Dade was Orlando with 21.9 percent of its home sales composed of distressed properties, followed by Tampa with 21.1 percent and Baltimore with 20.7 percent.

Although the county still ranked highly compared to the rest of the U.S., Miami-Dade’s distressed properties have fallen considerably since the recession’s peak. In January 2009, for instance, more than 49 percent of the county’s home sales were either repossessed properties or short sales. — Sean Stewart-Muniz