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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Vosilla who wrote (79530)	6/14/2007 8:03:20 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 306849

Foreclosure rate spikes in region 10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 By LESLIE BERKMAN The Press-Enterprise With the cooling of the housing market compounded by a spike in mortgage failures, foreclosure activity is skyrocketing in California, according to a report released Tuesday. The state had the third highest foreclosure rate in the nation in May, the report found. Among California counties, Riverside County ranked fourth, with one foreclosure-related filing -- which includes notices of default, notices of trustee sales and lender repossessions -- for every 128 households, according to the report by RealtyTrac, an Irvine-based online foreclosure marketplace. Riverside County recorded 4,550 foreclosure filings last month, which was more than four times the 1,066 filings recorded in May 2006 San Bernardino County was the seventh-ranked county in foreclosure activity, with one foreclosure last month for every 166 households, or a total of 3,633 filings, up more than seven-fold from 513 a year earlier. Nationally, California trailed only Nevada and Colorado in its foreclosure rate, with one filing for every 308 households, more than twice the national average. "After a barely perceptible dip in April, foreclosure activity roared back with a vengeance in May," James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a prepared statement. "Such strong activity in the midst of the typical spring buying season could foreshadow even higher foreclosure levels later in the year." In California, a major propeller of foreclosures has been the failure of subprime loans, said DataQuick spokesman Daren Blomquist. "In California, people are getting into mortgages they just can't afford," Blomquist said. "An analysis of our database shows about half of the foreclosures in the first quarter were from subprime loans." Another factor, he said, is that because home prices have flattened, and even fallen in some areas, homeowners in distress cannot depend on growing equity to bail them out. Blomquist said foreclosure activity started increasing last year from a historically low level and most economists he has consulted tell him it will grow through the end of 2008. Most people who receive notices of default still are able to save their homes from going to foreclosure, even if it means having to sell them, Blomquist said. But increasingly they are losing the battle. He said last month Riverside County recorded three notices of default for every notice of trustee sale, compared to five notices for every trustee sale a year earlier. In San Bernardino County in the same time the number of default notices for every notice of foreclosure auction dropped from eight in May 2006, to four last month. Usually about six months separate a notice of default from foreclosure. Reach Leslie Berkman at 951-893-2111 or at lberkman@PE.com