Miami Foreclosure Auctions are Flooding County Offices

Many of the county offices have been forced to expand their services to handle the amount of Browed and Miami foreclosures listings that are predicted to come in this month.

A foreclosure auction is a lender's final attempt to recover at least a portion of the amount loaned on a home, before taking the property back.

The Miami Herald reported Thursday that there were more than 1,000 foreclosed homes predicted to hit the auction block in February which has forced the County clerk’s office in Miami –Dade to increasing the number of days its holds auctions.

''We've been running into some serious problems,’’, “we’ve needed an extra day for a couple of months now.” said Michael Henderson, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade clerk office.

The Broward County Clerks office has been discussion of adding an extra auction day to lighten the accumulation of filings as well.

The Broward County Clerk’s office is also asking lenders and banks to extend sale dates by nearly a month.

The number of properties scheduled for auction have almost  tripled in numbers since 2006 to 10,209, plus for this year through January another 1,467 according to Foreclosure Information Systems, a Miami based data services company.

The number of foreclosure filings in Miami and Broward indicate that the numbers will continue to grow. The Miami Herald also reported that lenders opened foreclosure cases in Miami on some 8,829 home loans in the fourth quarter of 2007 and 10,207 in Broward. In January, another 3,247 cases were filed in Broward County.

The Miami Herald reported that Clerks from both counties are struggling with an ever-growing load of new cases.

One clerk pointed out the Broward court has been auctioning an average of 240 properties per week since January of this year compared to the 30 or 40 per month that they were doing a year ago.

Starting in March, Miami-Dade is expected to be ad an extra auction day which is predicted to be on Friday.

Contributed by MLR Realty