PORT ST. LUCIE — The city’s combination of high unemployment and even higher rate of home mortgages underwater has landed the city on a top 10 list of dubious distinction.

In an article in this week’s edition, U.S. News & World Report ranks Port St. Lucie fourth on its “Double Whammy” list of U.S. cities that have both elevated unemployment and high concentrations of negative equity.

St. Lucie County’s unemployment rate for March was 14.6 percent, significantly higher than the statewide rate of 12.3 percent or the national rate of 9.7 percent.

Experts including Rebecca Rust, the chief economist for Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation, have said when discouraged and underutilized people are included the actual percentage of unemployed is somewhere around 25 percent.

Meanwhile, 56 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage in the Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area were in a negative equity position for the fourth quarter of 2009, a report by California-based First American CoreLogic found. That’s 62,696 mortgages underwater — more than double the national rate of 24 percent.

The Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area encompasses St. Lucie and Martin counties.

Another report by First American CoreLogic found 26.7 percent of residential mortgages in St. Lucie County were at least 90 days in arrears in February — the third-highest rate among Florida counties.

It’s old news, said Maria Wells, president of the Realtor Association of St. Lucie.

“We know this is where we’ve been, which is why prices have been dropping,” said Wells, broker-owner of Lifestyle Realty Group. “We’ve been struggling with this through the whole recovery, but people are still buying houses.”

In listing Port St. Lucie fourth behind Las Vegas and two California cities — Merced and El Centro — U.S. News said, “The housing market in Port St. Lucie experienced one of the most aggressive pricing booms in the state. But the run-up in real estate values wasn’t underpinned by growth in population or jobs.”

Citing data from the Mortgage Bankers Association that 15 percent of home mortgages were either delinquent or in foreclosure at the end of 2009 — the highest level ever recorded in the MBA’s National Delinquency Survey — the article says, “Nearly four years after the real estate market peaked, an alarming number of Americans remain in danger of losing their homes.”

The article quoted Jack McCabe of McCabe Research & Consulting, saying, “These were markets that were heavily dominated by investor flippers, speculative flippers. They had no intention of ever occupying the property.”

Despite the constant stream of foreclosed homes coming onto the market, the inventory keeps reducing, Wells said.

“We’re told there’s still a lot of inventory in the courts pending foreclosures, but no one has informed us of how many there really are,” she said.

By Paul Ivice

DOUBLE WHAMMY TOP 10

U.S. News & World Report compared negative equity data from Zillow.com with unemployment figures from Moody’s Economy.com for the fourth quarter of 2009 and came up with this list of 10 cities that face a double whammy of default risks.

1. Las Vegas

2. Merced, Calif.

3. El Centro, Calif.

4. Port St. Lucie

5. Fort Myers

6. Bend, Ore.

7. Ocala

8. Detroit

9. Rockford, Ill.

10. Toledo, Ohio

Tags: mortgage, u.s. news & world report, unemployment

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