Local foreclosure activity falls to lowest level since 2006

Foreclosure activity in Southwest Florida has receded to its lowest level since 2006, holding now for several years at what analysts consider a normal volume of troubled homeowners.

Filings in the region have plunged 90 percent from their recession-era highs, far from the days when the region posted one of the top foreclosure rates in the nation.

The Sarasota-Manatee area recorded 2,117 foreclosure filings in 2018, with one in every 194 homes — or 0.52 percent — in some form of distress, according to report Wednesday from real estate database ATTOM Data Solutions.

That was down by 4 percent from 2017, 28 percent from 2016, and well off the peak of 20,507 filings in 2009 after the housing bubble burst.

It is also the lowest level of distressed properties since the 2,072 foreclosures in 2006, prior to the financial crisis.

The two-county metro area ranked 80th among the nation’s 214 largest metro areas for foreclosures last year.

The number of properties taken back by lenders was down 20 percent to a total of 811.

But foreclosure starts did increase last year in Sarasota-Manatee, in part from homeowners who were impacted financially by Hurricane Irma in 2017. The region posted 1,110 new starts, up by 22 percent over the year.

“Plummeting foreclosure completions combined with consistently falling foreclosure timelines in 2018 provide evidence that most of the distress from the last housing crisis has now been cleaned up,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM. “But there was also some evidence of distress gradually returning to the housing market in 2018, with foreclosure starts increasing from the previous year in more than one-third of all state and local housing markets. Some of that distress was driven by natural disasters."

Foreclosures filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were down by 15 percent throughout Florida and by 8 percent nationwide over the year.

In Charlotte County, foreclosure activity sank to its its lowest mark since 2009. The county reported 592 filings in 2018, down 5 percent over the year and off by 91 percent from the peak of 6,889 in 2010.

One in every 172 Charlotte homes, or 0.58 percent, was in some stage of foreclosure by year end.

Foreclosure starts did rise by 22 percent to 309 over the year.

Florida totaled 65,161 properties with foreclosure filings last year. That was about even with 2017 and down 39 percent from 2016. The state ranked sixth in the U.S., with one in every 140 of its homes in distress.

Nationwide, 624,753 properties — 0.47 percent of all U.S. housing units — had at least one foreclosure filing in 2018, down 8 percent for the year and the lowest level since 2005.