RealtyTrac, just released its October 2011 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ and the numbers that the national real estate industry leader has compiled are confirming what we’ve been warning folk about for awhile now: the banks are starting to become active again, and foreclosures are on the rise. Banks are getting busy taking homes — after a couple of years of being more concerned with all those Foreclosure Fraud issues.
Read the full text of the RealtyTrac Foreclosure Report online here. Information that RealtyTrac provides includes:
- There has been a seven percent (7%) increase in one month’s time – from September to October 2011.
- One out of 563 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing in October 2011.
- Default notices increased 28% in Florida in a month-over-month basis.
- Scheduled auctions increased 57% in Florida in a month-over-month basis.
What does RealtyTrac make of the statistics it has compiled? According to CEO James Saccacio:
“The October foreclosure numbers continue to show strong signs that foreclosure activity is coming out of the rain delay we’ve been in for the past year as lenders corrected foreclosure paperwork and processing problems. … However, recent state court rulings and new state laws keep changing the rules of the foreclosure game on the fly, creating more uncertainty in the housing market and threatening to prolong the road to a robust real estate recovery.”
What About the Foreclosure Glut in the Florida Courts?
It’s true that the actual foreclosure process is stalled in Florida and the Florida court system has yet to find an answer to the long, long time it takes for a foreclosure filing to get processed and completed in our state today. We’re talking years, not months. For many home owners, that means news like this can be taken with a grain of salt – because even if there is a notice that a bank is beginning the foreclosure process there is still a long, long time before the home owner has to deal with moving out or losing their home.
However, there’s lots of heads being put together on how to fix the Florida Courthouse Foreclosure bottleneck – because the lull that has resulted from the bottleneck has meant that the filing fees stopped, too. The Florida Supreme Court is estimating being $108 million in the red for the current fiscal year, due in large part to the lack of foreclosure filing fees — something that the Florida court system has traditionally depended upon as a steady revenue source. Governor Scott has sent them $14 million, and he’s also okayed a loan of $45.6 million, to keep the courts going.
So, yes. There is a bottleneck in the Florida courts. However, the Florida judicial system needs cash to operate, and those filing fees are always welcome.
Don’t expect the bottleneck to thwart the banks as they resume foreclosures and don’t expect the courts to turn any filing away because there is already so many on their plates. That’s not going to happen.
What should you do? If you are in trouble on your mortgage, then get ready to fight.
- Get help from a foreclosure defense attorney and know your legal options.
- Investigate your defenses.
- Consider loan modification negotiations.
- Consider a Short Sale ( Preferred by many lenders these days)
- Weigh the pros and cons of walking away.
The only thing that you should not do is be uninformed, and do nothing. Because the bank is doing something. Soon.
