A new report from RealtyTrac shows that three of the five cities worst hit by residential foreclosures are to be found in Florida. The metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates in 2015 were Atlantic City (3.43 percent); Trenton, NJ (2.14 percent); Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (2.03 percent); Jacksonville (2.02 percent); and Miami (1.98 percent). Nationally nearly 1.1 million U.S. properties were served with a foreclosure filing in 2015, down 3 percent from 2014 and a nine-year low from the start of the recession.
“In 2015 we saw a return to normal, healthy foreclosure activity in many markets even as banks continued to clean up some of the last vestiges of distress left over from the last housing crisis,” said Daren Blomquist, VP at RealtyTrac. “The increase in bank repossessions that we saw for the year was evidence of this cleanup phase, which largely involves completing foreclosure on highly distressed, low value properties.”
