South Florida foreclosure sales continue to fall, but surge on horizon

Foreclosures sales in the tri-county area fell by 25 percent in the third quarter of last year, according to data from RealtyTrac released yesterday, a continued symptom of the foreclosure freeze of 2010.

There were a total of 10,164 foreclosure sales in South Florida between July 1 and Sept. 30, down from 12,713 in the same period last year.

While foreclosure processing has been showing signs that it may begin to pick up again, the freeze implemented following the robo-signing scandal has continued to have an impact on the pace of foreclosures in South Florida.

But that could be changing, according to Lloyd Feinberg, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in Hollywood who deals extensively with bank transactions.

“I’ve seen a drop in listings over the past year, which I definitely attribute to the robo-signing mess,” he said. “However, as of Jan. 1, it seems to have picked up. From what I’m begin told in the industry, the floodgates are about to be opened.”

Feinberg said several of the banks with whom he had been working had begun ramping up a lot of their procedural education and compliance training with agents.

“That tells me they’re expecting inventory to rise and they want to avoid compliance and procedural issues,” he said. “In the last three months, there have been a lot of communications from the banks on compliance and procedure — and I assume that is in preparation for an elevated level of inventory.”

Miami-Dade County led the region with a total of 3,883 foreclosures sales, a 27 percent drop from the third quarter of 2010.

Foreclosure properties sold for an average of $128,603 in Miami-Dade, the highest in South Florida.

Broward County, which had 2,946 foreclosure sales in third-quarter 2011, saw the smallest drop, with just a 4.69 percent reduction year-over-year.

Statewide, the numbers were worse than in South Florida alone, with a 29 percent drop in foreclosure sales 25,657.