Mounting home foreclosures causes concerns
By Dr. Bevan Earle
Mounting home foreclosures in Broward and Miami Dade is causing wide-spread concern and has spawned deep stress and tension in the two counties. From all indications the situation is likely to worsen rather than get better.
What is indeed alarming is the fact that Broward County has the second highest largest mortgage foreclosure rate among the nation's top 100 metropolitan areas.
Broward County recorded 20,115 foreclosure filings in the third quarter, the most of any of the state's 67 counties, but that still was a 14% decrease from the same period of 2009. Broward had the state's fifth-highest foreclosure rate during the quarter.
"The foreclosure rate in Miami-Dade County rose to 18.8 percent in June, up from 17.6 percent a year earlier. In Broward, 14.6 percent of mortgage loans were in foreclosure in June, compared to 13.4 percent in June 2010." - miamiherald.
These figures are alarming and unless something is done and done urgently for homeowners, the future could be even worse.
At the root of the problem seems to be the steps taken by new home owners who opted to take out short term adjustable rate mortgages as they grappled with escalating home values.
"In Miami-Dade, 25.6 percent of loans are more than 90 days overdue, down from 27.5 percent last year. In Broward, the 90-day delinquency rate dipped to 20.8 percent, from 22.3 percent last year." -miamiherald.
Some housing experts have attributed the increase in fore-closers to the abundance of exotic loans, but local real estate observers say the problem can also be traced to the large number of real estate speculators in South Florida.
Some short term investors bought properties with the intention to never live there and hoping to sell them quickly for profits. But those speculators could not find buyers as the housing market contracted and they were stuck making the mortgage payments.
Part of the problems affecting home owners can be traced to the massive increases in property tax and home owners insurance. In some areas of Miramar for example, home owners have had to pay more than one thousand dollars over and over the previous years tax. In addition home owners insurance escalated to a level two and three times over the previous year.
Many have been forced to sell their properties and move north and unless something is done soon to alleviate the situation, then more people will head north.
During the boom years, Broward prices and sales increases were among the biggest in the state and nation, but these numbers are falling badly and sharply.
Nationally, prices of existing homes have for the first time in 11 years and sales declined to the lowest level since early 2004.
Those in authority must now act quickly to stem the tide and stop giving lip service to those in need of help.
