The Psychic on Duval appears to be out of business. Couldn't he see the future when he signed his lease? On July 15th a reader posted this comment in regard to a property I had written about:
"There was a report released today and covered on CNN about a jump in foreclosures and news that banks are beginning to act faster on booting delinquent homeowners (or second or third homeowners) and also liquidating the houses more quickly.
Any thoughts about that from a local perspective? There are also reports that more high-end owners with mortgages are defaulting. I've noticed the foreclosure and short-sale numbers have been ticking upward again in Key West."
I questioned his/her source and was referred to a local real estate website. The commenter later added:
" Foreclosures were down in the teens for awhile but are up to 26. Short sales were also down around/below 100 and have moved up to about 110."
I made my own inquiry in the Monroe County Clerk's online records. I did a very superficial review of two fields that show the filing of new foreclosures (which occurs with the filing of a
Lis Pendens). I did a similar review to determine how many Certificates of Title were recorded. (A Certificate of Title is the document by which the Court approves the sale of property at public auction through judicial foreclosure.) The results are shown below.
Number Lis Pendens Filed 2008 (1473) 2009 ( 1948) 2010 (609) [Jan to Aug]
Number of Cert of Sale 2008 (321) 2009 (721) 2010 (341) [Jan to Aug]It appears that 2009 was just horrible because the number of foreclosures was very high and the number of Certificates of sale increased over calendar year 2008. When I saw the the number of Certificates of Sale for the first six months of 2010 was .5599% of the new
Lis Pendens I almost started to believe the naysayers that the end of the world is near.
But then I stepped back and used by noggin. There is no definitive time link ( or certainty) between the filing of a
Lis Pendens and subsequent issuance of a Certificate of Title. The time lag is quite analogous to the listing of houses for sale. Many are listed. Some are sold quickly. Other take months if not longer to sell. Some properties are withdrawn from the market and are not sold. Some foreclosures go quick and the property is sold at public auction. However, some owners hire lawyers and drag the foreclosure process through the courts for as long as they can get away with it. And some owners find a way to avoid foreclosure by selling through the short sale process or through a conventional sale.
I then reconciled the passage of time between the date the
Lis Pendens was filed and the date the Court approved the judicial foreclosure bid amount and authorized the Clerk to issue a Certificate of Title. I assume that the large number of recent Certificates of Sale are from lawsuits filed in 2007, 2008, and 2009 that have wound their way through the judicial process and that finally got approved for court ordered sales.
I also did a simple comparison of the first six months of 2009 versus 2010 to see if there was an similarity of numbers or percentages.
Number of Lis Pendens Filed Jan 1 to Jul 1, 2009 1022
Number of Lis Pendens Filed Jan 1 to Jul 1, 2010 609
Percentage Difference -48.5% in 2010
Number of Certificates of Title Jan 1 to Jul 1, 2009 221
Number of Certificates of Title Jan 1 to Jul 1. 2010 599
Percentage Difference +200.7% in 2010
These numbers are for all of the Florida Keys. I am not certain that what happens in the other Keys reflects what is happening here. I look at the real property records every week but I only search Key West. What happens in Marathon or Key Largo does not concern me anymore than what happens in Altoona, Pa. What I do see are fewer new
Lis Pendens and even fewer Certificates of Sale for just Key West.
I would caution readers to take what you see on any website that extracts raw data and converts it to use to fit into that website's format. I have been cautioning readers to understand that bad info into a computer database will cause equally bad info out. Not all agents nor their assistants fill out the mls listing data sheets completely or correctly. Some agents do not encode short sale or bank owned properties even though they are supposed to do so.
My answer to the reader who asked for a "local perspective" is that I believe the number of new foreclosures in Key West is down from a year ago and the number of bank owned properties is about the same this year as last year. What I have seen is more short sales are getting approved. The short sale approval process has gotten more efficient and a bit quicker. I would also caution readers not to infer what goes on elsewhere in the United States (or even Florida) is what is happening here. There is a huge pent up demand for housing in Key West. It is the high price of housing and the cost of construction that prevents our market from over-heating. But the demand is still there. You don't need to be a psychic to predict that people will always be looking for a place in Key West.