This is a good news/ bad news story. The good news is there is plenty of opportunity for first time home buyers to take advantage of the depressed home prices brought about by desperate owners and foreclosures in the marketplace.
The bad news is that Florida is fourth in the nation in the number of homes entering foreclosure, according to a Jacksonville Business Journal article.
And Jacksonville has the dubious distinction of exceeding state and federal rates for foreclosures. In fact, rates here have hit a five-year high. In March, foreclosure related notices were sent out to 2,721 homes in Jacksonville – a 29 percent increase from February.
Duval County, the home of Jacksonville metro, saw foreclosure proceedings jump 42 percent in one year.
Contributing to the foreclosure rate is the fact that Jacksonville has about 16.1 percent of subprime loans. The numbers were provided to Reuters by First American LoanPerformance, an analytics unit.
Florida leads the nation along with California, Arizona, Nevada, and Illinois. Three million U.S. homes may receive a foreclosure notice before this year is up. As it now stands, one in every 159 U.S. homes with mortgages is being foreclosed, according to RealtyTrac.
Besides the bad economic times, major lenders are now calling in loans after giving borrowers a brief respite waiting to see what President Obama had in mind to address the nationwide foreclosure crisis.
Owner -occupied homes will be the only ones that may see some relief, while owners of rental homes and real estate speculators are not going to see any relief in the attitude of lenders.
