You may have seen some of the recent national headlines about foreclosure filings being up.
Those headlines caught my attention, especially with Florida being mentioned prominently, so I wanted to see what was actually happening closer to home.
As usual, the local story is a little more complicated than the headline.
First, a foreclosure filing does not necessarily mean a property has been taken back by the bank or is about to come onto the market as a foreclosure. It can represent several different stages of the process.
Still, it is a useful indication of whether more property owners are coming under financial pressure.
What is happening in Bay County?
Bay County recorded 380 foreclosure filings in 2025, up from 224 in 2024.
That is an increase of almost 70%, which certainly gets your attention.
But when we go back a little further, Bay County had 376 foreclosure filings in 2019.
In other words, the 2025 total was almost exactly where it was before the pandemic.
The years immediately following 2019 were unusually low:
So I think it is fair to say foreclosure activity has increased, but I do not think the numbers currently suggest we are moving into another foreclosure crisis.
It looks more like activity has returned to something closer to its pre-pandemic level.
The first quarter of 2026 also does not show another big jump. Bay County had 79 filings through March, compared with 83 during the first three months of 2025.
What is actually happening in Panama City Beach?
I also pulled all of the short-sale, foreclosure, and REO activity in the Panama City Beach MLS going back to the beginning of 2023.
Here is what actually closed:
That is only 16 distressed sales over approximately three and a half years.
To me, that is the most important local number.
There may be more property owners experiencing financial pressure, but that pressure has not resulted in a large number of short sales, foreclosures, or bank-owned properties reaching the Panama City Beach market.
What does this mean for buyers?
I would not make buying decisions based on the expectation that a large wave of foreclosures is about to hit PCB.
There may be individual opportunities, but we are not seeing enough distressed inventory to change the overall direction of the market.
Buyers do have more choices and more negotiating leverage than they did a few years ago. But that is mostly because of increased inventory, longer marketing times, affordability concerns, and more cautious buyers—not because the market is being flooded with foreclosures.
What does this mean for sellers?
For sellers, I do not think foreclosures are the main challenge in today’s market.
The bigger issues are still:
- More properties competing for buyers
- Higher insurance and ownership costs
- Condo fees and assessments
- Affordability
- Buyers taking longer to make decisions
That said, if a property owner is under financial pressure, it is usually better to understand the options early.
Waiting until the foreclosure process is further along can limit the choices available. In many cases, an owner may still have equity and may be able to sell normally before the situation becomes more difficult.
My takeaway
Foreclosure activity is up, and it is something worth watching.
But when I look at the actual activity in Panama City Beach, I do not see a foreclosure wave.
I see a market that is already challenging for other reasons—and a relatively small number of distressed properties within it.
