Can 150 foreclosure filings a day be a good thing? Yes, if the actions are in the tri-county South Florida region, where the pace is actually slowing, according to a new report.
Lenders pumped out an average of 150 filing a day in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties in the third quarter, according to CondoVultures, a Bal Harbour-based consulting firm. As big a number as that is – should we turn on the robo-signer? – it's actually a 42% drop from last year's third quarter, when the average was a whopping 259 cases daily.
For 2010 as a whole, filings in the region are down 36%, from an average of 279 cases a day to "just" 179, according to the report, which is based on Clerk of the Court records in the three counties.
"Foreclosures actions -- the first step in the repossession process -- are still a significant problem for the region," said Peter Zalewski, a CondoVultures principal. "But the housing epidemic appears to be losing some momentum."
Still, Zalewski admits that the decline in filings, which is the first step in the foreclosure process, raises a fundamental question: Are fewer borrowers defaulting on their mortgages, or are lenders seeking other options to deal with nonperforming residential loans?
