In bay area, fewer foreclosures in February

It's hard to say we had a "good" month for foreclosures, but while foreclosure filings in the state as a whole surged 14 percent from January to February, the Tampa Bay region's caseload dropped 6.3 percent. Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough and Hernando counties reported 5,828 foreclosure filings in February vs. 6,222 in January, according to the firm RealtyTrac. Across the country, foreclosures were up 6 percent month to month. The local improvement was a bit surprising considering Gov. Charlie Crist's voluntary foreclosure moratorium expired at the end of January. Many had predicted a compensatory surge of filings in February. The depth of the mortgage default crisis depended on the county. Pinellas, where new home sales were the slightest during the housing boom, reported a foreclosure rate of 1 for every 353 households. Hills­borough County came off the hardest hit at one in every 178 households.

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