Miami foreclosures up 63 percent in first quarter

There were a total of 25,883 properties in South Florida with a foreclosure filing in the first quarter of 2012, a 37 percent increase compared to the same period in 2011, according to a first-quarter report from RealtyTrac. Miami-Dade County, which led the region with 11,889 properties with foreclosure filings in the first three months of 2012, showed a 63 percent increase compared to first-quarter 2011. 

“Foreclosures are rebounding from the artificial lows that we were seeing last year because of the robo-signing and other delays in processing,” said Daren Blomquist, a spokesperson for RealtyTrac. “There’s definitely a shift, and a turn in the direction of the foreclosure trends in [South Florida].”

The first quarter of 2012 came on the heels of five straight quarters during which the foreclosure numbers were decreasing on an annual basis, Blomquist said.

Palm Beach County saw a total of 6,007 foreclosure filings in the first quarter, a 27 percent increase from 2011, while Broward had a total of 7,987 properties with foreclosure filings in the period, a 16 percent increase over the first quarter of 2011, according to the report, which looks at properties at all stages of the foreclosure process.

Florida had a total of 73,344 properties with foreclosure filings in the first three months of 2012, the second-highest total of any state in the nation after California. Nationally, the first quarter total was the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2012, another residual effect of the foreclosure freeze from 2010.

Florida, and South Florida in particular, will continue to see increases, Blomquist said, and could see more filings in 2012 than in 2011.

“Even though that may be somewhat painful for the market this year, it is actually good to see those delayed foreclosures finally being pursued,” he said. “They were just sitting in limbo and were creating more uncertainty in the market.”