TAMPA – Tampa Bay homeowners can get away with not paying their mortgage payments for about 285 days before lenders even begin to take the house back.
And if you think that’s a long time, get this: it takes about 673 days before the house is sold and the homeowner kicked out, according to data compiled by LPS Applied Analytics, which provides technology and data to the mortgage industry.
That puts the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area near the top of the list for states that are slow to initiate foreclose. The Bay area is behind Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and California.
It’s no secret that Florida is no where near emerging from the real estate downturn. But data like this show just how clogged local courts are. The data also bring up some thorny issues for economists and industry onlookers who say the market won’t recover until a bulk of the distressed homes are sold.
“This data reflects that our system is overwhelmed,” said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research. “It also reflects the pressure from government and others to come up with foreclosure alternatives. That’s good or bad, depending on your perspective.”
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