MIAMI—Lenders repossessed more than 10,000 properties in thetri-county area in the first quarter. That’s the highest numbersince the South Florida real estate market crashed in 2007,according to CondoVultures.

Specifically, lenders foreclosed on 10,200 properties inMiami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties in the first 90 days of2012. That compares to about 9,200 repos in the year-ago period.CondoVultures based its research on Clerk of the Court records ineach of the three counties.

“I’ve run into some properties that have taken 700 days toforeclose, so many of these foreclosures wereinitiated a long time ago,” Peter Zalewski, aprincipal with Condo Vultures, tells GlobeSt.com. “Going forward wewon’t see many more newly initiated foreclosures because theNational Mortgage Settlement pushes toward every other option thanforeclosure except in the worst case scenario.”