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Steady flow of new foreclosure filings in Palm Beach County, Florida
In the month of October, there were 1,036 new foreclosure filings in Palm Beach County, Florida. The new filings have remained elevated throughout 2012. Take a look at the trend:
Obviously there was a noticeable jump in new foreclosure filings in the month of March when the robo-signing foreclosure settlement was finally put to rest after halting foreclosures for two years. In October, Palm Beach County had 811 single family homes and 225 condo/townhome properties enter the foreclosure process. As the chart illustrates, this trend has remained elevated throughout 2012 and doesn’t show signs of subsiding anytime soon.
What is unfortunate is that most media outlets are ignoring this ongoing problem and screaming that housing has bottomed. Even worse is that most real estate agents are cramming their buyers into overpriced properties. There has been a recent spike in prices mainly due to lack of available inventory, which is directly correlated to the growing number of South Floridians who continue “squatting” in homes that they don’t pay for and haven’t paid for in years!
For a look at which cities in Palm Beach County, Florida that have the highest number of properties currently in foreclosure, take a look at the next chart.
The Palm Beach County, Florida cities with the highest level of foreclosures as of 11/30/12 are:
- West Palm Beach – 2,610 houses and 861 condo/townhomes in foreclosure
- Lake Worth – 1,761 houses and 166 condo/townhomes in foreclosure
- Boca Raton – 1,600 houses and 647 condo/townhomes in foreclosure
- Boynton Beach – 1,461 houses and 340 condo/townhomes in foreclosure
At some point these properties will enter the market for sale as either a short-sale or bank foreclosure, but this process may take several years to liquidate this inventory. The total foreclosure count as of 11/30/12 in the cities listed above was 10,698 single-family homes in foreclosure and 2,986 condo/townhome properties in foreclosure.
In summary, the recent uptick in prices that the local news media and real estate agents have been so excited about is merely a “suckers rally”. Eventually all of the distressed properties will make their way to the South Florida market and will bring prices down with them, the rate of price drops in each area will depend on how many distressed sales enter the market at the same time.
Stay tuned to our blog. Each month Allied Realty Group will update the current housing inventories, price trends, distressed sales and foreclosure data for Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County, Florida.