South Florida’s foreclosure rate drops in first quarter: report

South Florida continued to flush out its stockpile of foreclosures during the first quarter, according to a newly released report.

Of all the tri-county region’s home mortgages in the first quarter, a total of 9,603 — or about one in every 258 homes — were in some stage of foreclosure, according to the report from real estate research firm RealtyTrac.

Compared to the last quarter of 2015, that rate has fallen by a little over 15 percent. It’s dropped by an even larger 39 percent when stacked up against the first quarter of 2015.

Out of South Florida’s three counties, Miami-Dade has the most foreclosures with 4,244 homes — likely because it’s the largest real estate market. However, Broward was not far behind with 3,264 homes, and both were trailed by Palm Beach County with 2,095 homes in some stage of foreclosure.

Those figures make South Florida the country’s 14th largest metropolitan area in terms of foreclosures during the first quarter. Atlantic City, New Jersey, had the nation’s worst foreclosure rate with one in every 106 homes, followed by Trenton, New Jersey, with one in every 168.

“Despite a seasonal bump higher in March, foreclosure activity in most markets continues to trend lower and back toward more healthy, stable levels,” Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at RealtyTrac, wrote in the report.