California Mortgage Defaults Hit 13-Month High
SAN JOSE (KCBS) - The real estate tracking firm RealtyTrac recorded a 17 percent increase in default notices in California during October, a sign the housing market has yet to hit bottom despite a marked improvement from 2010.
In Santa Clara County, the number of foreclosed homes on the market has gone down about 30 percent since 2010, said Dan Carter, publisher of the Blue Sheet which tracks foreclosures.
KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:
Yet the numbers Carter sees on his daily visits to the Santa Clara County Office of the Clerk-Recorder do not fill him with optimism. Instead of 30 default notices a day, Carter said he's seen between 40 and 60 a day.
"The lenders had stopped filing notices of defaults and decided to sit on them. Now they have decided that they're going to release these properties to sale," he said.
That means some 3,000 foreclosed properties in the county are about to go on the market over the next seven weeks. Notifying a home owner he or she is in default is the first step in the foreclosure process.
Ironically the number of default notices actually went down as this week progressed. Carter saw more than 40 on Monday, 35 on Tuesday and 25 on Wednesday.
Carter attributed the next wave of foreclosure sales to Bank of America, which after two years has resumed foreclosing on mortgaged properties in default.
(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
