But the free-fall already may have ended, and some experts say that six out of every 10 homes and condominiums sold over the next two years will be either a foreclosure or short sale.

Part of that prediction played out in December when — despite the holidays — foreclosure filings in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties rose 18 percent from November and nearly 30 percent from a year ago, according to numbers provided Wednesday by RealtyTrac Inc., a California market research firm.

The flood of distressed properties this year and next could have impact on pricing, though observers seem divided on that point.

Last year, there were 11,476 foreclosure actions compared with 25,336 in 2010 and 22,729 in 2009, RealtyTrac’s data showed.

“What happened is that people stopped giving their homes to banks after uncontested rocket-docket hearings,” said Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach real estate consultant. “They started getting lawyers and those lawyers discovered that banks had been presenting improper and sometimes fraudulent documents to the courts. Once that sank in, banks realized they had a disastrous problem. They had to fire their old attorneys and hire new ones who had to review all their files.”

There were 371,000 open foreclosure cases in Florida at the end of 2011, McCabe said. It took the new attorneys the whole year to determine which of those cases could stand the test of the judicial foreclosure process and which could not.

Now McCabe expects the rate of foreclosure filings to rise for the next 18 months.

“On top of that, we are going to see more banks solicit short sales on the homes they can’t bring to foreclosure,” he said.

The spike in filings during December did not carry across Florida or the nation. State filings fell slightly from November and dropped 4.5 percent from a year ago. Nationally, filings were down 9 percent from November and 20 percent from a year ago.

But most foreclosure experts agreed that the long lull caused by the robo-signing crisis was coming to an end.

“There were strong signs in the second half of 2011 that lenders are finally beginning to push through some of the delayed foreclosures in select local markets,” said Brandon Moore, RealtyTrac’s chief executive. “We expect that trend to continue this year, boosting foreclosure activity for 2012 higher than it was in 2011, though still below the peak of 2010.”

There are about 900,000 properties in Florida that are in some stage of distress — 370,000 already in foreclosure and another 530,000 with mortgages that are 90 days past due, McCabe said.

Of those, about 720,000 will have to be sold through foreclosure or short sales within the next 18 to 36 months, McCabe predicted.

He thinks that will push prices down about 5 percent.

But others in the real estate business think low inventories will allow the market to absorb the properties without a significant impact on pricing.

“For properties under $250,000, there is a 3.5-month supply. That represents a strong sellers market and prices are starting to go up in those ranges,” said Ron Pepka, the broker-owner of Keller Williams Realty on the Water in Bradenton.

Prices for homes in the $250,000 to $600,000 range are holding steady, while prices above that level are still falling. “Above $600,000 there are still 18 sellers to every one buyer,” Pepka said.

But by the measure of median price — the point at which half of homes sold for more and half for less — Pepka predicted that an increase is more likely than a drop.

Shannon Moore, broker-owner of GreenLionRealty.com in Port Charlotte, agreed.

“To find something decent under $100,000 is hard, hard, hard,” Moore said. “Before, there were tons and tons of them. But now when a house comes on the market under $100,000, it is not uncommon to get 10 to 15 offers.”

Moore said there are still plenty of vacant houses in Southwest Florida, including four of the 15 houses on her own street, but so far only a few foreclosures have been coming on the market each month.

That is partly because investors are snapping up foreclosures at courthouse auctions, which means the homes are never listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service.

More distressed properties also are being sold through short sales, where banks permit owners to sell for less than is owed on the mortgage.

“Short sales are coming through much quicker than foreclosures,” Moore said.

The trend is likely to accelerate, with many experts predicting that 2012 will be the year of the short sale.

“I think a lot of people who were in denial — like deer in the headlights — are waking up to the reality that they are hopelessly upside down in their homes and they want to get out,” said Bob Saltzman, regional manager for Advantage Mortgage in Tampa.

Saltzman predicts that more homeowners will stop looking at a short sale as an emotional decision and start looking at it as business decision. They will realize it will take more than a decade for housing prices to return to their 2005 levels, and that in the meantime, they could be saving money by moving into a rental.

“There is less stigma to defaults now,” Saltzman said. “People have to realize that this crisis is much bigger than they are. It is a multi-generational disaster that originated from the top down — from the top of Wall Street and Washington. It’s bigger than any one person. So they should’t put it all on their shoulders.”

McCabe, the Deerfield Beach consultant, thinks modifications will be another important factor tempering the number of foreclosures this year.

“At least one bank — JPMorgan Chase — is doing what I said was needed all along,” McCabe said. “It is quietly and selectively offering principal mortgage write-downs.”

McCabe knows an owner with a $450,000 loan on her condominium who received a $200,000 principal write-down from JPMorgan Chase.

“I believe other major banks will follow Chase’s lead,” he said.

Moore, the Port Charlotte broker, said the changes to the federal government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program due out in March also could help many underwater homeowners.

The broker owes $180,000 on a house that is now worth $120,000. Through the HARP program, she may be able to reduce her interest rate from 7.5 percent to 4 percent and that might be enough of an incentive to stay.

“I think programs like this will cause fewer foreclosures in the year ahead,” Moore said.