Mixed bag on foreclosures

California as a whole saw a slight drop in foreclosure proceedings during the April-June quarter compared with the prior three months, but the numbers remain higher than last year. L.A. County saw a 13.8 percent increase from the second quarter of 2008, according to Dataquick. From the release:

"There is a perception that the housing market is dragging along bottom, that it probably won't get much worse, and that the lenders need to get serious about processing the backlog of delinquencies, either with work-outs or foreclosure. We're hearing that some lenders and servicers are doing just that, hiring more people to do the necessary paperwork. That means the foreclosure numbers will probably shoot back up during the third quarter," said John Walsh, DataQuick president.

The median origination month for defaulted loans was July 2006, right before the roof caved in on the housing market. "Either the mid 2006 loans were particularly nasty, or lenders and servicers haven't kept up with new delinquencies. Looking below the surface statistics it appears likely that it's both," Walsh said.

Q2 Notices of Default

County/Region 2008Q2 2009Q2 Yr/Yr%

Los Angeles 21,632 24,622 13.8%

Orange 7,564 8,261 9.2%

San Diego 9,519 9,866 3.6%

Riverside 14,974 14,302 -4.5%

San Bernardino 11,817 10,852 -8.2%

Ventura 2,303 2,431 5.6%

San Francisco 418 589 40.9%

Alameda 3,928 4,616 17.5%

Contra Costa 5,046 5,017 -0.6%

Santa Clara 3,751 4,099 9.3%

Santa Barbara 922 835 -9.4%

San Luis Obispo 499 491 -1.6%

Source: MDA Dataquick