MARTHA BRANNIGAN | Miami Herald |
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Even as Florida’s housing market is showing solid recovery with impressive gains in prices and sales volume, the state led the nation in foreclosures completed in the year ended in August; no other state was even close, according to CoreLogic.
Of the 658,463 foreclosures completed nationwide during the 12-month period, 111,000 of them, or nearly 17 percent, were in Florida, according to the Irvine, Calif.-based data firm.
Michigan ranked No. 2, with the completion of 60,000 foreclosures, and No. 3 California wrapped up 58,000 proceedings during the period.
The top five foreclosure states — which included No. 4 Texas, with 43,000 foreclosures finalized, and No. 5 Georgia, where 40,000 were finished — accounted for almost half of all foreclosures completed nationwide.
And although Florida cleaned out more foreclosures than any other state, it still has the highest inventory of foreclosures, Corelogic said. The firm said 7.9 percent of mortgaged homes in Florida were in some stage of foreclosure in August. New Jersey ranked second among the states, with 6.2 percent of all its mortgaged residences in foreclosure. New York had 4.9 percent; Maine, 4.0 percent; and Connecticut, 3.9 percent.”