Miami Foreclosed Homes Can Be Bought with Loan Subsidies

Miami foreclosed homes can be bought with loan subsidies under the homebuyer assistance program of the Miami-Dade County Department of Housing and Community Development. But this program is available only to low- and moderate-income families and individuals in the county.

A family or individual qualified to participate in the program is given a subsidy of up to $70,000 to be used to purchase a foreclosed residential unit, which can be a single-family house, a condo unit or a townhouse. But the unit should be located in priority areas chosen by Miami-Dade County and should be foreclosed and vacant.

An applicant must also be earning at least 51 percent of the median income in the area but not higher than 120 percent of the median income for his family size as classified by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. The applicant must also get a pre-approval from among mortgage lenders chosen by the county, must attend a home ownership class and must have the ability to complete the home purchase within 6 months of the award.

Applicants who are not successful in getting subsidies are still qualified to choose from among Miami foreclosed homes acquired by the county.

The homebuyer counseling agencies financed by Miami-Dade to help prospective buyers are Miami-Dade Neighborhood Housing Services, Centro Campesino Farmworker Center, Opa-Locka CDC and Miami Beach CDC.

For other prospective home buyers who are not qualified under the subsidy program can still find affordable foreclosure homes in Miami-Dade as foreclosure actions continue to be filed in the county. According to a California-based real estate research firm, nearly 7,800 households in the county received default or foreclosure notices in October or one out of every 126 households.

A total of 4,769 households were hit with foreclosure lawsuits while 1,221 properties were repossessed by their lenders. Compared to other counties in Florida, Miami-Dade was seventh in a ranking based on foreclosure filings and number of properties repossessed. Florida meanwhile ranked third in a ranking of states based on rates of foreclosure. Nevada and California topped the ranking.

The popularity of foreclosure homes in Florida, particularly Miami, is shown in the big proportion of Florida properties being purchased by foreign investors over the past months. Florida accounted for almost 25 percent of all foreign real estate purchases over the past several months.