Flagler Foreclosure Picture Brightens

Open Flagler County foreclosure cases drop 9.7% in less than two months. Total now stands at 1,314. Home equity is on the rise in the U.S.

Palm Coast, FL – March 6, 2014 – Joining national trends, Flagler County is seeing a downturn in the number of new foreclosure filings with only 40 in February. Open Flagler foreclosure cases dropped 9.7% in less than two months. The total now stands at 1,314. Meanwhile foreclosure completions (the result of foreclosure sales) are running at a good clip as judicial encouragement prompts action on backlogged cases.

The just released Fourth Quarter CoreLogic Equity Report is encouraging. Rising Home prices led to improvements in home equity, with 4 million U.S. residential properties regaining equity in 2013. But 6.5 million residential properties with a mortgage are still in negative equity while an additional 10.4 million have positive equity but are considered under-equitied (5% or less equity).

More tidbits from the CoreLogic report:

• In aggregate value, negative equity was $398.4 billion for the fourth quarter 2013, compared to $401.3 billion in 2012, a decrease of $2.9 billion.
• Home equity is concentrated at the higher end of the market. For example, 92% of homes valued at greater than $200,000 have equity compared with 81% of homes valued at less than $200,000.
• On average, residential properties with negative equity are underwater by 32.6%
• Five states with the highest percentage of negative equity in mortgaged properties are Nevada (30.4%), Florida (28.1%), Arizona (21.5%), Ohio (19.0%) and Illinois (18.7%.
• The five states where mortgaged residential property has positive equity are Texas (96.1%), Alaska (95.8%), Montana (95.8%), North Dakota (95.8%) and Maine (95.4%).

How does Florida stack up against the national numbers?