Could it be that the “slow as molasses” foreclosure process involves more than just banks juggling more Miami Beach condos than they know what to do with? The courts may also be to blame. While most of us are well aware of the foreclosure surplus, the sheer number that courts are grappling is quite large and it's forcing them to take some drastic measures.

In Miami-Dade County alone, over 80,000 foreclosure cases are at some stage of “pending”, a major problem that could affect existing owners of Miami Beach condos who are in good standing. How so? As long as such a large bottleneck exists property values will only continue to drop as all of these cases go through the courts system. In other words, the sooner they're taken care of the sooner values will at least start to show glimmers of stabilization.

To combat the situation, the Florida court system is requesting $9.6 million as a onetime payment in order to hire additional case judges and case managers to tackle the backlog. Each district would receive funds based on the number of foreclosure case loads. Expect Miami Beach real estate and/or Miami-Dade to receive a hefty sum if the funds are granted, perhaps the backlog will indeed begin to decrease.