Miami-Dade foreclosures hit three-year peak

Foreclosures
in Miami-Dade County reached a three-year peak in January with 1,188
auctions scheduled, up 49 percent from 795 during the same period last year, and 58 percent from 750 in December 2008, according to a
monthly foreclosure report from Propertyshark.com.

The number of foreclosure auctions often climbs between December
and January, said Brian Scully, the vice president of marketing at
PropertyShark.

“Typically we would expect an increase from
December to January,” he said, “as holiday schedules (and probably some
sense of collective guilt about scheduling an auction around the
holidays) mean less auctions are scheduled.”

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Miami also had the highest rate of foreclosures per household
compared to the other metro areas the report examined: New York, Los
Angeles and Seattle. In Miami, one in every 654 homes is scheduled for
auction, followed by Los Angeles, with one in every 1,205 homes. By
comparison, one in every 10,856 homes in New York is scheduled for
auction.

Los Angeles had more than double the number of foreclosures as
Miami, with 2,605 in January, although the number was 32.9 percent down
from January 2008. Like Miami, New York saw an increase year-over-year
with 278 foreclosures, up 5 percent from last January. Seattle had a
smaller number with 104, 41.6 percent fewer than last year.

The zip code with the most foreclosures was 33177, an area which includes Miami, Perrine, Quail Heights and Country Lakes.