L.A. County foreclosures: Up, up and away

The third-quarter foreclosure report released by PropertyShark.com last week paints another bleak picture. Los Angeles County foreclosures, totaling 15,749 by their methodology, were up nearly 196% from the same quarter in 2007 when there were 5,322. From the second quarter of '08, which had 14,505 foreclosures, they were up 9% in the third quarter.

If that's not dramatic enough for you, way back in the third quarter of 2006 the county recorded just 1,539 foreclosures. That's a more than 923% increase to last quarter.

The  ZIP Codes with the most foreclosures were, in descending order: Palmdale 93550, Lancaster 93535, Sylmar 91342, Pacoima 91331, Palmdale 93552, Norwalk 90650, Palmdale 93551, Long Beach 90805, Lancaster 93534 and Quartz Hill 93536. For Palmdale 93550 that translates into one in every 45 homes, and for Lancaster 93535, one in every 46.

Who was left holding the most bad loans in L.A. County? Countrywide Homes Loans, followed by Washington Mutual.

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Lawrence K. Ho /Los Angeles Times

Comments

[HyperGirl]

I moved away from Los Angeles in April 2007 but returned for a few days this week. As I was driving around with my sweetie in the Valley, I was stunned by the number of homes for sale and foreclosures. What a difference 18 months makes.

[jbunniii]

Remember the silly days of 2005-2006 when we were breezily informed that all of the toxic mortgage-backed securities had been sold to dupes in China and Arabia? Guess not.

[Sean]

Comes as no surprise that Wamu and Countrywide were the ones with the most bad loans. They were very aggressive with their creative financing and very lax when it came to income verification.

Serves them right.

We need to get back to the simple policy of "who ever makes the loan, owns the risk." Then, maybe banks wont give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in liar loans and cry for a bailout.

[Tom Lindmark]

Relax, it's almost over. Remember, BofA agreed to eat all of the bad loans. No more foreclosures in SoCal. Of course, the market never finds a bottom and housing just limps along for a long, long time.

[mike]

sean...

what do you mean it serves them right??? a couple of people came out of it very wealthy and tens of thousands will lose jobs over it. do you think angelo mozillo cares that the company he started is gone????? who does it serve right the poor saps that worked at these places?

[SC]

Actually we did sell a lot of junk to China, who do you think called the fed and basically said if you don't back freddie mac/fanny mae we aren't going to buy anymore of your treasury securities in the future. Who do you think helps finance a great part of our 10 trillion deficit.

[Nutjob]

@SC: China owns more Fannie and Freddie bonds than they do treasuries. Also, they've been net sellers of Treasuries recently. Our national debt is not going to be financed by China in the near future.