Florida Bank Foreclosure Listings Continue to Grow

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Florida Governor Charlie Crist are on different boats on whether the state is making progress on its efforts to stave off bank foreclosure listings.

Since last year, foreclosure prevention has been on the top of Florida’s agenda with Crist appointing a task force to study the crisis and brainstorm on potential solutions. The state also allocated over $1 million in federal funds to provide counseling to distressed homeowners who want to protect their properties from bank foreclosure listings.

In addition, Crist was able to convince some lending institutions and banks in Florida to put a moratorium on foreclosures over the holidays. And Crist is pleased and satisfied over the course of Florida’s efforts to fight foreclosure. He believes that the state has done well in managing and balancing its budget and maintaining its bond rating.

But Sink disagrees with Crist, saying that she is not satisfied with the way the state government handles the foreclosure problem. She believes that the Office of Financial Regulation should have done more to address the problem and the increasing mortgage fraud.

She said that she is hopeful that the state would have a leader who will be enforcement oriented. But despite her criticisms, Sink expressed her satisfaction over the way Florida handles its budget, bond rating and solvency compared with other states such as California, New York or New Jersey.

She admits that the government’s capacity to solve the problem has limitations. However, she hopes that first time homebuyers will take advantage of the federal credit amounting to $8,000.

She pointed out that Florida should find ways to trim its large inventory of properties on bank foreclosure listings to help stabilize and strengthen the housing market and put a brake to the freefalling home prices.

RealtyTrac’s May 2009 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report showed that Florida has the third highest foreclosure rate last month, with one out of 148 homeowners receiving a filing of foreclosure.

In the first quarter of this year, Florida reported 119,220 foreclosure filings, a 12 percent decline from the last quarter of 2008 but a whopping 36 percent rise from the first quarter of the previous year.

The state came in fourth in terms of the number of properties on bank foreclosure listings in the first quarter.

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