Thinking about buying in Florida. But everyday I see reports like this.

This below is a report from www.realtytrac.com 

“Irvine, Calif. – January 23, 2006 – RealtyTracâ„¢ the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released year-end data from its 2005 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which showed that 846,982 properties nationwide entered some stage of foreclosure in 2005, and a 25 percent increase in the number of new foreclosures from the first quarter to the fourth quarter.”

“RealtyTrac publishes the largest national database of pre-foreclosure and foreclosure properties, with more than 550,000 properties in nearly 2,000 counties across the country, and is the foreclosure data provider to MSN House & Home, Yahoo! Real Estate, AOL Real Estate and HomeGain.com.”

“Overall U.S. foreclosure numbers climbed steadily over the course of the year, with more new foreclosures reported in every quarter,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “This trend appears to be moving the real estate foreclosure market back to its historic levels.”

“Saccacio noted that the number of 2005 foreclosures needed to be kept in context. “Even with almost 850,000 properties entering some stage of foreclosure across the country over the course of the year, this represents less than 1 percent of all U.S. households. And the increase in U.S. foreclosures from Q3 to Q4 was just below 5 percent.””

This part about Florida is what I think will drive up supply of housing even more.

‘Despite a 29 percent decrease in new foreclosures from the first quarter to the fourth quarter, Florida documented the nation’s highest foreclosure rate and accounted for more than 14 percent of the nation’s new foreclosures in 2005. The state reported 121,843 properties entering some stage of foreclosure — 1.67 percent of the state’s households.”

Toll Brothers also came out with a report of lowered expected number of new homes sold for 2006 on Bloomberg today.

“Toll lowered its forecast of the number of homes it will sell in fiscal 2006 to 9,500 to 10,200, from the 10,200 to 10,600 it projected on Aug. 25. In fiscal 2005, which ended Oct. 31, Toll sold 8,769 homes. ” 

In the same report, a real estate analyst expected the increasing supply of housing in Miami area to cause a steady decline in housing prices.  He expected that it will take the market 2 years to absorbed the increase in the housing supply.

Basically that means if I buy now, I am in for the long haul.  Time to rethink this some more.