Cal. foreclosures up 421% from year-ago levels

Breaking news from Peter Hong of the L.A.Times: "A record 31,676 Californians lost their homes to foreclosure in the three months ended Dec. 31, the third-straight quarter of record-breaking foreclosures, records released today show."

More from DQNews.com: "Trustees Deeds recorded, or the actual loss of a home to foreclosure, totaled 31,676 during the fourth quarter. That's the highest since DataQuick began tracking Trustees Deeds in 1988. Last quarter's total rose 30.8% from 24,209 in the previous quarter, and jumped 421.2% from 6,078 in fourth quarter 2006. In the last real estate cycle, Trustees Deeds peaked at 15,418 in third quarter 1996. The all-time low was 637 in the second quarter of 2005.

More to come.

Comments

[Cal]

LA County is behind the curve actually, its a bigger ship to move so it turned around slower. It is gaining steam rapidly though.

[jose]

How many of these forclosures are for Illegal Aliens who the BOA gave mortagages to ????

[Raul Garcia]

$499,000 for a new townhouse in El Monte!?!?! Get real!!!

This is just the beginning, wait until the mortgage insures have to ante' up.

[Joseph D. Phillips]

This isn't bad news. It's extremely GOOD news. About time, too.

[Jenna]

This might be true but I haven't really seen an uptick in homes on the market in the areas I am looking for (like pasadena & south pasadena). And even if there are a few homes on the market they certainly aren't at really low prices. Seems like we are in a bit of a holding pattern in attractive locations. Do people think there will be less foreclosures in areas like that? I also wonder how all the market intervention being talked about is going to effect the market in those areas. Wish I had a working crystal ball.

[Joseph...The Real Estate Guy]

Peter Y. Hong,

Biased reporting?

[Banking Sheep]

Liberal media reporting. Just look at the numbers instead. Oh wait, those are the numbers. Foreclosures WAY UP!

Liar loans, subprime, ARM. . . it's all good. Because there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Now pay up!!!!!

[lacontractor]

i would love to hear lefty's take on this...

[CD]

Bubbletracking.blogspot.com shows the graph and it is mind boggling, but there is another 81,550 NOD to follow. This is scary, this is really scaring me now. Lefty, please say something....

[GettheetoAnnonery]

i would love to hear lefty's take on this...

Posted by: lacontractor

On this thread the role of lefty will be played (with less fanfare) by Joseph...The Real Estupido Guy.

[lefty]

guys we have a lot more houses than we did in 1988, and also many foreclosures are not from "sad homeowners"! so look beyond the clouds and you'll see that the best price is right now for metro L.A.!!

[Joseph...The Real Estate Guy]

Interestingly enough, I came across an article in the "Boston Glove", on how Bill Clinton and Henry Cisneros, then HUD Secretary, pushed "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" into purchasing "SUB-PRIME HOME LOANS". That was a bad idea!

Does anybody else on this blog know anything about it?

Coming soon!
WWW.ASKTHEREALESTATEGUY.COM

[CaptHowdy]

Hey Joseph, how is reporting facts biased? Please explain.

Did a record 31,676 Californians not lose their homes to foreclosure last quarter? Was it somehow not really the third-straight quarter of record-breaking foreclosures?

If you've got more accurate numbers, let's hear 'em!

[tom]

Back in the late eighties I couldn't afford a house because the most I could afford was a $1200 payment and houses were around $200,000. Now that credit is harder to get, I think that's going to be the new reality since wages haven't increased much since then. Its amazing how wall street can manipulate the credit markets.

[Bobster]

Sellers remain in denial, but they won't hold out forever. Prices have to come down a lot before the market revives. We're only halfway through this correction, which could be followed by years of stagnation. Good time to buy: 2014!

[Joseph...The Real Estate Guy]

Tom,

Be patient, good times are coming!

[CD]

Thanks Lefty I feel better now...That is still a lot of ' FOR SALE" signs though. The sign business must be booming. Who does those? We should look into it, where are they stored, who puts them in the ground, not the real estate agents that's too much work....How much do they cost, they look like a hangman post, why not have a guillotine style, or an electric chair style, that would be a warning for the buyers,we need a sale sign for the times to come....

[TakeFive]

Jenna wrote:

"Seems like we are in a bit of a holding pattern in attractive locations. Do people think there will be less foreclosures in areas like that [Pasadena]?"

2009-2010 for Pasadena. This is when the Alt-A and Neg-Am loans made to better qualified buyers begin to reset. Plus the fatigue of paying large sums every month on a deflating value home will cause a wholesale capitulation by sellers in the better areas.

It's beginning already:

Wachovia: Homeowners just Walking Away

http://tinyurl.com/39bedy

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/
wachovia-homeowners-just-walking-away.html

[I Am Not Dead, So This Must Be LA]

To "jose" and to all others who think the same.

It is more than a little asenine to think that a big percentage of these defaulted mortgages have anything to do with illegal immigration . Why is "subprime" constantly lumped with "illegals?" I know plenty of CITIZENS who have "subprime" credit scores (and since we are talking of illegals, many do not even establish "credit" since they deal primarily with cash), so to think this is even remotely an "immigration" issue shows the level of ignorance that has caused this mess in the first place.

I do agree this may be a "class" issue, but the bottom line is I think the public's dependance on credit has created a whole segment of society who are used to living WAY above their means. As previous articles have shown, this "credit crisis" goes above and beyond real estate, but RE is the diva of the financial world (really, would the financial institutions tremble at an article of 30,000 cars being repo'd?)

[Ray]

Gotta love all of the "Let's see what the lefties have to say about this?"...Isn't it more that we should hear Fox News & the right-wingers shouting, "It's all Bill & Hillary's fault." Such buffoons, lol!

[LA Times Needs Your Money]

Ok, I understand how desperate LA Times is to sell newspapers since they fired the editor over 'budget issues'... but saying Cal foreclosures is up 421 percent is pretty biased.

Why not say that .4 percent of California homes went into foreclosure last quarter? That is it.... point four. We act like it is the great depression around here. It is a bunch of subprime idiots who should have never bought a house in the first place. That is it. I think the number in LA County is .1 or .2.

Second, this blog is LA Land. Why not report that LA had the second lowest notice of defaults in all of California?

Both of these numbers are in the same article. Are prices in LA inflated? Sure. But let's stop reaching for any crazy number we can find to make ourselves feel better about paying rent.

[mbob]

".... would the financial institutions tremble at an article of 30,000 cars being repo'd?"

No, an auto-mo-bile doesn't cost quite as much as a house in S. Cal. does.

As for walk-aways, ask your local law enforcement folks (always wave and smile at them since that's who you'll call when you're really in a jam) how much they like abandoned homes where the vacant structure's ownership is unclear.

Yes, homo sap does have a robust tradition of fleeing from things deemed of no further value, or even as liabilities. Abandonment is part of our species' heritage. It's called survival.

[California]

To "I am not Dead, so this must be LA",

It DOES have to do with illegal immigration to a degree. Look at Santa Ana - forclosures are WAY WAY higher in these types of areas.

[Joseph...The Real Estate Guy]

Funny!

You state the facts, and you are called a "Right-Winger"...

How ignorant can you be?

[JK]

IANDSTMBLA,

Thou doest protest too much. Asinine would be sticking you head in the sand and believing that illegal immigration is not a large part of the liar loans handed out like halloween candy during the RE heydey. It would also be asinine to believe that illegal immigration has not played a large part in the housing crisis faced by California.

Many people (present company included) fled the city of Los Angeles to escape the crowded schools filled with their small children, the dangerous neighborhoods filled with their gang banging teenagers, the closed emergency rooms filled with their seniors and the American flight caused by their ability to turn a middle class neighborhood into a third world barrio in 60 seconds flat!

[Illegal Alien]

Sub prime woes....blame the illegals! Righties like bank execs, mortagage cos,, realtors & brokers all made a ton of money from 03-07 nowon the run. Nobody would admit any fault, they're all sacred so just blame the poor victims whom they call lefties and illegals.

The clock is ticking....your time expire in a matter of months. Here are the true problems:

- exporting job overseas to shore up profits
- in-sourcing by importing cheap labor to shore up options and bonuses of righties
- closing of small shop, mom & pop, corner gas station, american groceries and replaced them with well entrenched righties like owners of Costco, Sams, Big Lots, 99 STores, Wal Mart, Home Depot, Lowes. So where are the small entrepreneurs? Gone! Righties, blame the illegals
- tax cut for the rich....blame the illegals for the benefits they obtain from subsidies.
- Righties control the White House, both Congress for 6 years...illegal immigration goes uncontrolled, who do they blame? The poor illegals! You are the lawyers, the lawmakers, the police , why don't you blame your mismangement under your watch!!!
- to those who read this post...remember what the righties did in this country from 2001- 2008

[Simplat]

I am 100% behind getting the illegals out of our schools and hospitals and off social services,and out of our voiting booths, but to hang the mortgage mess and housing disaster on them is incorrect.

Possibly a tiny percentage of illegals got loans and somehow bought places they counldn't or wouldn't pay for, but the total is very small.

We only have the native born citiizen to blame for this one.

Remember that every day is one day closer to a correction.

[Keith]

"Gotta love all of the "Let's see what the lefties have to say about this?"...Isn't it more that we should hear Fox News & the right-wingers shouting, "It's all Bill & Hillary's fault." Such buffoons, lol!"

Ray - Lefty is a frequent commenter, a perma-bull, who is actually quite entertaining while being somewhat of an empty suit at the same time, that's what "Let's hear what Lefty has to say" is all about. He's obviously in the business and has a Don Quixote type aura about him.

[Radical Raul]

It amazes me how people ignore one of the root causes of the collapse of the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of mankind, brought on by the Bush administration and Greenspan.

One of root causes was the insane appreciation of property values, which still have a long way to go before they correct to normal.

We are headed into a severe recession and we are still a good 2 to 3 years away from rock bottom.

This time around greed was not good and a lot of people are going to get hurt, but then again what do you expect from a Ponzi scheme promoted and supported by the government which is suppose to be for the people, by the people.

Let us pray, especially for those who lay blame on the meek.

[cane]

interesting that peter hong has the by line on this story. didn't he just crow about his prescient personal market timing? when a journalist makes himself a part of the story it's sad when a newspaper allows him to jump back into the closet. the most depressing part of this blog isn't the constant drive-by-the-car-wreck focus (when it's labeled as a regional view of all real estate stories), but that a major metropolitan newspaper has allowed it to happen. clearly the takeover by zell and the revolving door of editors has impacted what was, once, a world class organization,

peter you come across as a decent, honest, intelligent journalist. please take the higher, more difficult road and bring this blog to a place where the title suggests.

[Christopher Hain]

While the foreclosures have become a virtual flood in much of L.A., they're still little more than trickle in the most desirable neighborhoods. What's that old real estate saying? Something, something, something.

For more detail, go here: http://terrafirmala.com/2008/01/tons-of-la-foreclosures-
except-on.html

[JimBob]

Face it. Those people never really owned their homes. They were sold a soap bubble full of hot air. So sad. And the rich just keep getting richer...

[Cal]

Here is a headline you wont see anywhere..

The number of default notices exceeded the number of sales last quarter.

In Los Angeles county there were 13266 sales and 13613 Notice of Defaults (NoD, the first step in the foreclosure process). The good news for NoD is that they didn't grow in LA County QoQ.

Unfortunately, DQ didnt publish the Trustee Sales (NTS) broken out per county in this press release, a conservative estimate of 24% growth in QoQ NTS would be around 4500 Trustee sales.. which would mean that for every 3 homes sold last quarter 1 went back to the bank.

This inventory that goes back to the bank usually takes 1-3 months to get back on the MLS, this is phantom inventory that we will see coming back on the market at motivated seller prices soon. Inventory is not being worked off, it is building, as are the selling pressures.

We have a full year of limited availability of Jumbos, very little subprime (except FHA) and Alt-A and the very real possibility of the GSEs being capital constrained sometime later in the year (depending on the portfolio losses).

[Lou]

It's funny that all the real estate folk complain about bias reporting now but when the (fraud) market was booming and the mainstream media was ignoring the obvious problems, they said nothing.

[I Am Not Dead, So This Must Be LA]

California,
Are you saying that ALL the foreclosures in SANTA ANA are solely due to illegal immigration? Or could it possibly be that ignorant normal people (immigrant and otherwise)took out 100% equity loans and then could not afford the payments? And how could you explain the rise in foreclosures in non-hispanic areas (South Central, KOREATOWN, Carson)? Oh, right, every non-white person who bought a house during 2003-2006 MUST have been illegal.

JK
Curious that somebody who admittedly does not live in the city of LA KNOWS that the problem is solely attributable to illegal immigration. I tend to agree with SIMPLAT that whatever issues we have with immigration (illegal or otherwise), that we pin this "crisis" on them is too simplistic and frankly gives them WAAAYYY too much credit. And as for your generalization about what illegal immigration has done to LA, I know that an educated person like you understands that gangs, little children, seniors, and "ghettos" existed in EUROPE long before they even knew the existence of the new world, and these also exist in BASTIONS of non-brown hood. There are not many neighboorhoods in LA (or the US for that matter) that do not have similar problems regardless of the predominant skin color, so why not stop the blaming and start the hugging? ;)

[JK]

IANDSTMBLA,

I never said the problem is solely due to illigal immigration. I said that illegal immigration plays a huge part in the housing problems in Los Angeles. I am well aware of the havoc the elites have wreaked on the middle class. My problem is that illegals continue to be the big white elephant in the room. People talk around them but no one would dare be caught criticizing the damage they cause because of political correctness. Thank God for blogs.

To add insult to injury, there are people in Northern California that have had their properties seized through emminent domain so that our treasonous government can build schools for illegal alien children.

They have infiltrated our political process, affected our wages and crowded us out of the city we loved. Our children are forced to speak a foreign language in their own country to secure entry level jobs, our neighborhoods are no longer safe and our medical facilities are forced to close because they are required to deliver anchor babies. I could go on and on but this is a real estate blog and I would like to stick to the subject. I just wish people would admit the damage illegal immigration has done to the middle class of America.

[Mountainhigh]

I was born in California and left 28 years ago. With a few exceptions it was an arm pit then and it's gotten stinker. The real estate market is the least of your problems. An Aussie asked me once: "Where does all the effluent go, mate?" I answered, "It doesn't go anywhere it stays right there".