Foreclosure filings fall 73 percent

More homes nearing auction

New fore closure filings fell 73 percent across Palm Beach County in May, another indication that the once-crushing mortgage crisis has passed.

The county had 363 new cases filed last month, compared with 1,331 in May 2013, according to a report Tuesday by Realty Trac Inc. It was the 10th month of the past 11 in which filings dropped from the same period the year before.

Still, Palm Beach County did see modest annual increases in cases scheduled for foreclosure auction and bank repossessions.

“There are fewer distressed home owners left over from the last housing crisis,” said Daren Blomquist, a vice president of Realty Trac, a foreclosure listing firm based in Irvine, Calif. “The pain point nowis that those properties that started the foreclosure process two or three years ago are being pushed through [the court system] slowly but surely.”

Realty Trac monitors public records for three types of foreclosures: new filings, cases scheduled for auction and bank repossessions.

Foreclosures in Florida fell 30 percent in May from a year ago, the 10th consecutive month with a year-to-year decline.

But the Sunshine State had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the eighth month in a row, a sign of how deep-rooted the housing downturn was in Florida, Blomquist said.