Thursday, December 5, 2013

FLORIDA IS #1 AGAIN! Florida leads nation in luxury home foreclosures

Florida’s foreclosure rate for all housing units is the highest in the nation for October, but it is also home to the most high-end foreclosures in the country, according to a report released Wednesday by RealtyTrac.
Dubbed “ultra high-end homes” and defined as those valued at $5 million or more, the report shows Florida had 67 such properties in some stage of foreclosure through the first 10 months of the year -- nearly quadruple the 17 luxury homes in foreclosure all of last year.
Nationwide, there were just 192 high-end foreclosures total through October, an increase of 61 percent over all of 2012.
Most of the multimillion dollar homes in foreclosure are located in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Orlando-Kissimmee metro areas. Miami’s 47 high-end homes in foreclosure are the most among all metro areas, and the 12 luxury home foreclosures in the Orlando area rank it fourth among cities.  
The news of troubled expensive homes, however, isn’t necessarily all bad. The report suggests the spate of luxury foreclosures indicates banks can withstand the bigger losses brought by defaults on larger loans.
“This trend may indicate lenders are now financially stable enough to more comfortably weather the big-ticket losses that these properties potentially represent. In addition, animproving housing market means more prospective buyers, even for these ultra high-end homes. A bigger buyer pool translates into higher sales prices on these properties, allowing lenders to recoup more of their losses on these jumbo loans gone bad,” the report states.
But the owners of high-end homes are also more likely to have more resources to hold out against foreclosure than the owners of down-market properties, so the jump in luxury foreclosure activity may not be completely driven by lenders. Florida’s high-end foreclosures are the highest since 2009, after three straight years of declines.

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