CONDOMINIUM FORECLOSURES are still much more rare than foreclosures on single-family homes, but the gap closed in 2010.

Foreclosures on condos soared 85 percent for the year, with lenders taking back 397 condominiums, compared with 224 in 2009.

The action appeared to be largely inland. The lowest foreclosure rates on condos was seen on Siesta Key, where 20 out of 6,781 condos completed foreclosure, and Longboat Key, where only 10 out of 1,119 went under.

By far, the highest foreclosure rate in the county was the 12 percent suffered last year along a commercial and condo strip on Osprey Avenue both north and south of the intersection with Siesta Drive.

Of the 150 condos in the neighborhood, 18 went through foreclosure. But the high foreclosure rate was driven largely by the 14 foreclosures at Bermuda on Osprey.

Over a two-year period ending in September 2008, California real estate investor John Couch bought 30 condos at Bermuda on Osprey for $300,000 per unit and quickly resold them to members of an investment group for an average price of $540,000 per unit. The investors defaulted on their loans en masse at the end of 2008.

Between sales at much lower prices and reassessments, the average value of a condo there is now estimated at about $53,000.

Other concentrations include 17 foreclosures in the Parkridge condos south of University Parkway and east of Tuttle; 13 in Las Palmas of Sarasota, south of University and east of Honore Avenue; 13 in Admirals Walk, north of Clark Road and west of Gantt Road; and 11 in Vintage Grand, near Sarasota Square Mall.

“When you go through those areas, people are saying, ‘I’ve heard there’s this many foreclosures,’ ” said Perry Corneau, a condo specialist who recently merged his company with Signature Sotheby’s.

“If you look at every area with a high foreclosure rate, you can trace it to one crummy project,” he said, noting that many of the projects the Herald-Tribune’s analysis identified as the hardest hit, including Admirals Walk and Bermuda on Osprey, were condo conversions done near the top of the market.

While condo foreclosures are happening at a brisk pace in some inland areas, it is not surprising they are rare on the barrier islands, Corneau said.

Banks would provide 100 percent financing for single-family homes but required sizeable down payments on condos. Most well-located condos on the islands can cover their costs through rentals, he said.

Better than one out of 20 single-family homes in Sarasota County had been through foreclosure between 2007 and 2010, nearly triple the rate of condos.

But in 2010, the foreclosure rate for condos jumped to 0.8 percent, nearly half the single-family home rate.

Nearly $50 million worth of condos, as measured by the county property appraiser’s annual assessments, went through foreclosure during the year. The average for these 397 foreclosed properties was $123,410. By and large, it is the lower-priced condos being reclaimed by lenders. Countywide, the average estimated market value for a condo is $225,646. So condos that went through foreclosure in 2010 were worth about 55 percent as much as the average condo in the county.

That mirrors what is going on in the broader residential market, where single-family homes that went through foreclosure were assessed at about 39 percent below the countywide average.
This story appeared in print on page D10