American • Foreclosures skyrocket on Space Coast

Foreclosures skyrocket on Space Coast; Florida numbers up for July
Florida Current Staff, 08/09/2012

The thousands of layoffs stemming from the end of the space shuttle program this past summer hit the Space Coast hard, but the economic effects of continue to reverberate one year later.

The Melbourne-Palm Bay-Titusville metro area had one of the highest increases in foreclosure filings in July, shooting up 287 percent from June and 213 percent from July 2011, when the last shuttle flight occurred. The area had one foreclosure filing for every 214 housing units last month, the fifth-highest rate among metro areas, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac, a California-based foreclosure tracking company.

There are five other Florida metros in the top 20 for foreclosure rates: The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area had a one in 267 rate, the ninth-highest; Jacksonville had a rate of one in every 287 housing units, the 14th-highest rate; Orlando-Kissimmee’s rate was one in every 293 housing units, the 15th-highest rate; Lakeland’s rate came in at one in every 297 units, the 16th-highest rate; Ocala had the 19th-highest rate with one foreclosure filing for every 302 housing units.

California has nine metro areas in the top 20 foreclosure rates, but their cities experienced year-over-year decreases, while all of Florida’s metros in the top 20, with the exception of Ocala, saw year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity last month.

Overall, California had the highest foreclosure rate with one in every 325 housing units, while Florida’s rate of one in every 352 units was third, behind Arizona. Florida’s foreclosure activity jumped 14 percent over July 2011. The national rate was one in every 686 housing units.

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Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:50 pm