Foreclosure in Miami-Dade and Broward Right Now, and How We Help You Keep Your Home

If you are behind on your mortgage in Miami-Dade or Broward and you want to keep your house, you have more room to move than the letters in your mailbox make it feel like, and the best time to use it is now. Florida had the highest foreclosure rate of any state in the first half of this year, and filings are up about a third from last year. That is a real number. It is not a verdict on your house.

I know how this goes. The envelope sits on the counter. You check the account at 11pm and the balance is the same as it was at 10. You rehearse how you are going to tell your family, and then you put it off one more day. The holidays are coming, and you are trying to figure out how to keep the lights on and keep the roof.

I see you. This post is for you, and it is written to be useful whether you ever call us or not.

Where Miami-Dade and Broward stand right now

Start with the state, because that is where the newest complete numbers are.

Across the first half of 2026, Florida had 27,494 properties with foreclosure filings, the highest rate of any state, at 0.27 percent of housing units, or about one in every 373 (ATTOM Mid-Year 2026 Foreclosure Market Report). That is up about 33 percent from the same stretch a year earlier (News4JAX, summarizing ATTOM).

A "filing" is a step in the process, like a lawsuit or an auction notice. It is not a lost house.

One honest note on timing. In the single month of August, Florida ranked third, at one in every 2,397 housing units, or 4,278 filings (ATTOM August 2026). Do not set that next to the one-in-373 figure. One is six months added together and the other is one month, so they cannot be compared.

Now the two counties. The newest county-level numbers I could find are from the first quarter of 2026, from ATTOM's data as reported by DiscoverSouthFlorida:

Here is what I take from that, and what I do not.

Broward's rate is higher than Miami-Dade's and it is climbing faster. By ATTOM's count, Miami-Dade was the only one of the three counties lower than a year before. And the same source notes that current quarterly filings are roughly 16 times lower than the crisis years of 2008 to 2010. So this is serious, and it is also not 2009.

What I will not do is guess at the second or third quarter for Broward. ATTOM's mid-year and August reports do not break out Miami-Dade or Broward, and I did not find a newer Broward number.

For Miami-Dade there is one more source. The Clerk posts its own monthly count of mortgage foreclosure filings, and it shows 2,913 filings from January through September 2026, against 2,447 over the same nine months of 2025, about 19 percent more (Miami-Dade Clerk, mortgage foreclosure statistics). Handle that number with care. The Clerk counts cases filed in court, ATTOM counts properties with a foreclosure step in the quarter, and those are different yardsticks. For the first quarter the Clerk's months add up to 957 filings in 2026 against 722 in 2025 (same Clerk page), while ATTOM had Miami-Dade down 2.8 percent. I do not know why the two disagree, so do not treat either one as the last word.

If you see an article giving you a neat county-by-county table for this fall, ask where it came from.

One more national number worth knowing. The average foreclosure nationwide now takes 563 days to finish, the shortest since 2013 (HousingWire, summarizing ATTOM). I could not find a Miami-Dade or Broward figure, so treat it as a direction and not a promise. It is still about a year and a half. But the cushion people count on is thinner than it used to be.

The reports count filings. They do not tell you why a family got behind, and I am not going to pretend they do.

Who is calling you right now

Here's the thing. The day a foreclosure case is filed, it becomes a public record. A lis pendens, which is Latin for "suit pending," gets recorded in the county's official records. Your phone starts ringing and your mailbox fills up with people who pulled your name off that list.

Some of them are decent people. Some are not. You cannot tell by the first call, so use a test that does not depend on how nice they sound:

• Do they want money from you before they have done anything?
• Do they want a signature today?
• Are they telling you there is only one way out?
• Will they put every option on the table, including the ones they make nothing from?

If the answer to the first three is yes, hang up. If the answer to the last one is no, that tells you what you need to know. I wrote more about telling these callers apart in the state of pre-foreclosure in South Florida.

What working with us actually looks like

You have probably noticed I have not told you to sell. That is on purpose.

We start by trying to keep you in the house. Not as a courtesy. As the first move. If staying is what you want, we go through everything that could make it happen before anybody says the word sell. A lot of people reading this in the fourth quarter want exactly that: get through the holidays, get caught up, and stay in the home where their kids know which step creaks.

We get on the phone with your lender, with you

Most people in trouble have never had anyone on their side of that call.

Your loan has a servicer. That is the company that collects your payment and handles the loan, and it is not always the bank whose name was on the original paperwork. When you give us your permission, we get on the phone with your servicer alongside you. We ask the questions you do not know to ask, and we write down who said what.

What we are after is the full picture. Exactly what you owe to catch up. Whether a sale date exists. Which programs your type of loan qualifies for. What paperwork the servicer needs from you and by when.

That matters because the federal rules give you a right to be looked at, not a guaranteed answer. Once you send in a complete application, the servicer must acknowledge it in writing within 5 business days. If it arrives more than 37 days before a sale, the servicer has 30 days to evaluate it and tell you in writing what it will offer. And in most cases it cannot move for a foreclosure judgment or hold a sale while that application is being reviewed (12 CFR 1024.41). The same rule says a servicer does not have to offer you any particular option. So the quality of what you send, and when you send it, changes what you get. Some small servicers are covered by fewer of these rules, which is one more reason to find out exactly who holds your loan.

The options we put in front of you

We have a longer playbook than I will go through here. These are the three that matter most for someone who wants to stay.

Reinstatement. This means catching up what you are behind, plus the fees, in one lump payment, so the loan goes back to the way it was and the case is dismissed. For a loan insured by the FHA, federal rule says the lender must allow it even after a foreclosure has been filed, with a few exceptions (24 CFR 203.608). For other loans it depends on the contract you signed, because Florida law does not create that right for you. It gets more expensive the longer you wait, because the fees keep adding up. I went through how to get a real number from your servicer in the reinstatement guide.

Loan modification. This changes the terms of the loan going forward so the payment fits your life again, with no court case. For Fannie Mae loans, the Flex Modification is available when you are at least 60 days behind, or when your servicer decides you are about to be, and it aims for a lower payment on a fixed-rate loan (Fannie Mae Servicing Guide). FHA's current set of options, in place since October 1, 2025, includes repayment plans, which spread the missed amount over several months, and forbearance, a temporary pause or reduction in payments (HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-12). The details are in the loan modification guide.

Bankruptcy. I am not a lawyer and neither is anyone on our team, so I will tell you what it is and when to call one. Filing triggers what is called the automatic stay, which freezes collection against your property, including a scheduled sale (11 U.S.C. § 362(a)). Chapter 13 is the version built for people who want to keep the house. It is a repayment plan, three to five years, that lets you pay back what you are behind while you stay, as long as you can make that payment and your regular mortgage payment on top of it. It is a real tool and it has real costs. It is a court process, so you need a bankruptcy attorney, and I broke down what each chapter does in Chapter 7 vs Chapter 13. If it is the right answer for you, we will say so and point you to counsel.

Notice what is not on that list: any option that requires you to sign something this week. Pick the one that fits your numbers.

We lay out every option, not just ours

Including the ones we make nothing from. If a HUD-approved counselor can save your house for free and we cannot, we will tell you to go use them. Most homeowners in foreclosure have never had somebody put the whole board in front of them at once. That is the job.

If keeping the house is not realistic, you get a plan

Sometimes the monthly number never fit, or the hardship is not going away, or you are tired and what you want is to turn the page. That is allowed. It does not make you a failure.

If that is where you land, you do not walk off a cliff. You get a definite game plan with real dates. Where you are going next. What the move costs. What happens to your credit and how long it takes to recover. How much money you leave with, and when it lands.

People on our team have helped homeowners find temporary housing so they had somewhere steady to land until they got back on their feet. We have helped with storage. We have helped with rentals. None of that is in the fine print of a mortgage. It is just what it takes for a person to get from a hard year to a better one.

Selling gets explored only if it makes sense for you, it is what you want, and it works on both sides. Sometimes that means us buying the house. Sometimes it means telling you straight that another route puts more money in your pocket.

Your equity is the thing being protected

Equity is the part of the house that is yours, the value minus what you owe. You built it. The job is getting as much of it into your hands as the deal will carry.

No upfront fees, ever. Nothing signed the day we meet.

Take whatever we hand you to a HUD-approved counselor or a lawyer first. That's it. If we cannot earn your trust without a rushed signature, we do not deserve it.

What to do this week

Start with whichever of these you have not done.

Find out if a case exists. In Miami-Dade, search your name on the Clerk's case search. In Broward, use the Broward Clerk's case search. Write down the case number if there is one.

Check for a sale date. Miami-Dade sales are listed at miamidade.realforeclose.com. Broward's are at broward.realforeclose.com. A date on that calendar is your real deadline, and everything else plans backward from it.

If you have been served, count your 20 days. Florida's rule is that a defendant must serve an answer within 20 days after service (Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(a)(1)). Count from the day you were served, not the day you opened the envelope. I walked through what happens next in what actually happens in a Miami-Dade foreclosure.

Call your servicer and ask for the loss mitigation department. That is the one that handles hardship. Ask what you qualify for and write down the name of everyone you talk to.

Call a HUD-approved counselor. It is free and it is not a sales call.

Free help in Miami-Dade and Broward

Links were checked on October 28, 2026, and each number comes from that organization's own website. Hours change, so call to confirm.

HUD-approved housing counseling, nationwide. Free foreclosure counseling at 800-569-4287, TTY 800-877-8339. Start at HUD's avoiding foreclosure page or search by zip with the CFPB's counselor finder.

Miami-Dade

• Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida. HUD-approved counseling in Miami. 305-751-5511, nhssf.org.
• Legal Services of Greater Miami. Free civil legal help. (305) 576-0080. Phone intake runs Monday through Thursday, 2:00 to 4:00 PM. legalservicesmiami.org.
• The Clerk's Foreclosure Unit. (305) 275-1155, for questions about your own case file. They cannot give legal advice, but they can tell you what is in the record. Foreclosure page.
• 211 Miami. Dial 211 or text your zip code to 898211. 211miami.org.

Broward

• Urban League of Broward County. HUD-approved foreclosure prevention and loan modification counseling, free and confidential. 954-584-0777, 560 NW 27th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale. ulbroward.org/housing.
• Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida. Free civil legal services for eligible Broward residents. 954-736-2400, Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 3 PM. Their page does not list foreclosure by name, so ask when you call. coasttocoastlegalaid.org.
• 211 Broward. Dial 211 or text your zip code to 898211. 211-broward.org.

A word on a program you may be pointed to. Florida's Homeowner Assistance Fund is closed, and I could not confirm any statewide program that is open to new applicants. If someone sends you there, do not spend your energy on it.

If this has been wearing on you, you do not have to carry it alone. Dial 988 any hour for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or 211 for a person who can point you to local help. The emotional side of pre-foreclosure is worth ten minutes if you have them.

The bottom line

Florida had the highest foreclosure rate in the country in the first half of this year, and as of the first quarter Broward was running hotter than Miami-Dade. Neither county is anywhere near the crisis years, and neither number is about you.

If you want to stay, there are real routes to try, and the earlier you start the cheaper they are. A servicer is required to look at a complete application and answer you in writing, and having someone on the call changes how that goes. If staying is not realistic, there is a way to start the next chapter with a plan, a place to land, and as much of your equity as the deal will carry.

Look up your case. Find your date. Make the call to your servicer, or let us make it with you.

If you want to talk it through with somebody who starts by trying to keep you in the house, here is how we work with homeowners facing foreclosure, and what it looks like if you are just behind on payments. We work in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Pembroke Pines, and across both counties. Every option on the table, including the ones that do not involve us. No pressure and no upfront anything.

If you would rather talk it through by phone, you can pick a time and schedule an appointment with us, or call (305) 590-8493.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. NewLife Home & Investments is a real estate investment company, not a law firm or CPA. Consult a licensed Florida professional about your specific situation. Figures and program availability cited were verified in October 2026 and can change.