Palm Beach County sees 40 percent uptick in foreclosure filings

Palm Beach County saw a 40 percent increase in the number of properties with foreclosure filings in 2010, with 43,438 last year compared to 30,870 in 2009, according to data from RealtyTrac.

There were 171,704 properties with foreclosure filings in South Florida in 2010, about 0.7 percent fewer than in 2009, according to RealtyTrac.

The region was led by Miami-Dade County’s 65,716 properties with such filings although foreclosures were most frequent in Broward County, with 7.76 percent, or one of every 13, of all housing units in the county in foreclosure last year. There were 62,550 properties with foreclosure filings in Broward in 2010.

Nationally, just under 3 million properties received foreclosure filings, an increase of 2 percent from the year before and 23 percent from 2008.

RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said that the total number of properties receiving foreclosure filings would have exceeded 3 million if not for the controversy that caused foreclosures to be halted during the fourth quarter.

“Even so,” he said, “2010 foreclosure activity hit a record high for our report, and many of the foreclosure proceedings that were stopped in late 2010 — which we estimate may be as high as a quarter million — will likely be re-started and add to the numbers in early 2011.”

Florida had the third highest rate of foreclosures in the country, with 5.51 percent, or one in every 18, of its housing units receiving at least one foreclosure filing in 2010. That number represented a 6 percent drop from 2009.

Individually, Miami-Dade County recorded 65,716 properties receiving foreclosure filings, Palm Beach County had 43,438 and Broward had 62,550.

Both Miami-Dade and Broward counties saw decreases in the number of properties with foreclosure filings compared to 2009.

In December alone, Broward and Miami-Dade counties showed drastic decreases in the number of foreclosure filings (a number which is typically higher than the number of properties in foreclosure). There were a total of 2,083 foreclosure filings in Broward in December, a decrease of around 70 percent from the same period in 2009. In Miami-Dade, there were 3,083 filings, which was down 58 percent from the year before.

Palm Beach County had 3,024 filings, which was actually a jump of 14 percent from 2,652 in December 2009.