BY JOHN FAKLER
Executive Editor
CondoVultures.com

While U.S. foreclosure activity in February fell two percent from the previous month, the number of foreclosure filings in Florida jumped 15 percent during the same period, according to a March 11 report by Irvine, Calif.- based RealtyTrac.

RealtyTrac's February 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ noted 308,524 foreclosure filings in February. Nationally, one in every 418 homes received a foreclosure filing during the month, according to the report.

In Florida, one in every 163 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing, the report noted.

Foreclosure filings in Florida rose more than 16 percent year-over-year, from February 2009 to February 2010. Nationally, foreclosure activity was six percent higher than in February, 2009.

“The six percent year-over-year increase we saw in February was the smallest annual increase we’ve seen since January 2006, when we began calculating year-over-year increases, but it still marked the 50th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity,” James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

Saccacio cautioned in his statement that the numbers don't necessarily suggest less distress, but that "foreclosure prevention programs, legislation and other processing delays" are capping monthly foreclosure activity at a historically high level. 

The situation is different in South Florida where lenders filed 19 percent fewer foreclosure actions in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties in February compared to a year earlier. The current pace of defaults in South Florida for the month of February still averages out to 239 filings per day in the tricounty area, according to a recent eport from CondoVultures.com.

Lenders filed 6,680 foreclosure actions in February 2010 compared to 8,200 actions in 2009 and 5,500 actions in 2008, according to the report based on the Condo Vultures® Foreclosure Database™.

John Fakler is Executive Editor of CondoVultures.com. He can be reached by email at jfakler@condovultures.com or 800-750-0517.

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