TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Florida's Foreclosure Rate 4th In Nation

ADVERTISEMENT

By SHANNON BEHNKEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 13, 2008

TAMPA - For the second month in a row, Florida has ranked fourth in the nation for its high foreclosure rate, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac, a housing research firm in California.

Florida had 25,736 foreclosure filings in May, up 6 percent from April and up 72 percent from the same month last year.

Florida had the nation's third-highest foreclosure rate in March and was the nation's second-highest in November.

"It's the fallout of a market that got ahead of itself," said Daren Blomquist, spokesman for RealtyTrac. "I think we can expect at least several more months of rising foreclosures as loans that have already gone into default are taken back by the bank."

Locally, the metro area of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater ranked 35th among the metro areas with the most foreclosures. The area had 4,773 filings in May, or one for every 271 households, according to the report. That was up 15 percent from April and up 29 percent from the same month last year.

Two Florida cities were among the top 10 metro areas for the highest foreclosure rates. The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area had the second-highest metro foreclosure rate in May, with one in every 79 households receiving a foreclosure filing. The other Florida metro area in the top 10 was Port St. Lucie-Fort Pierce at No. 10.

Florida and California had nine of the top 10 cities with the highest foreclosure rates. Las Vegas was the exception at No. 6.

The city with the highest rate in May was Stockton, Calif., where one in every 75 area households was in the process of foreclosure - more than six times the national average.

Other California cities and their rates were: Merced, No. 3; Modesto, No. 4; Riverside-San Bernardino, No. 5; Vallejo-Fairfield, No. 7; Bakersfield, No. 8; and Sacramento, No. 9.

Nationwide, 261,255 properties received foreclosure filings during the month, a 7 percent increase from the previous month and a 48 percent increase from May 2007.

One in every 483 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing during the month, the report said. That's the highest monthly foreclosure rate since RealtyTrac began issuing the report in January 2005.

RealtyTrac tracks default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.

Reporter Shannon Behnken can be reached at (813) 259-7804 or

sbehnken@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT