It no longer might be a flood, but there’s still a steady stream of foreclosures saturating the housing market.
Across the nation, foreclosure filings were reported on more than 900,000 properties in the first quarter of 2010, a 16 percent spike from a year ago, RealtyTrac Inc. said in a report to be released today.
In Ventura County, there were 3,932 foreclosure-related filings posted in the first quarter, including 1,574 default notices, 1,615 auction sales and 743 bank repossessions. That total edged up just slightly from the 3,921 filings over the same period in 2009. The majority of those foreclosure-related filing were in Oxnard, Ca. Conejo Valley Foreclosures were not as high.
One in every 70 county households received a foreclosure filing during the first quarter.
In March alone, there were 1,919 foreclosure filings in the county, a 71 percent spike from February and an almost 14 percent increase from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac. Last month’s filings included 769 default notices, 871 auction sale notices and 279 bank repossessions.
Foreclosures are going to be a problem the rest of the year, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
“We’re climbing out of a basement of a very, very significant downturn,” Kyser said. “We are still losing jobs.”
Experts are mixed on whether the foreclosure fiasco is coming to an end. Some predict another big wave during the summer, when a slew of adjustable rate mortgages are due to reset.
“I think we’re going to see more ARMs being reset, but the question is, Is it going to be worse than what we’ve seen? Because what we’ve seen is pretty unpleasant,” Kyser said.
California’s foreclosure activity decreased 6 percent from the first quarter of 2009, but the state still had the nation’s fourth highest foreclosure rate, with one in every 62 households receiving a foreclosure filing, RealtyTrac reported.
The state accounted for 23 percent of the nation’s total foreclosure activity in the first quarter — more than 216,000 homeowners received foreclosure notices.
Areas hardest hit by foreclosures include Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin and Kern counties.
Among states, Nevada continued to post the nation’s highest foreclosure rate, followed by Arizona and Florida.
Across the nation, more than 367,000 households, or one in 352 homes, received foreclosure-related notices in March. That was up nearly 19 percent from February and nearly 8 percent from March 2009, according to the Irvine-based foreclosure listings company.
The increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure, said James J. Saccacio, chief executive of RealtyTrac. Bank repossessions hit a record high of 257,944 in the first quarter of 2010 — an increase of 9 percent from the previous quarter and an increase of 35 percent from the first quarter of 2009.
That subtle shift may indicate that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory built up over the past year as foreclosure-prevention programs and processing delays slowed down the normal foreclosure timeline, Saccacio said.
Steve Gould of Keller Williams Westlake Village said he doesn’t see the foreclosure situation changing anytime soon. For every loan that goes into foreclosure, there’s probably at least two or three times as many delinquencies, Steve said.
If banks were not willing to work with distressed homeowners, we would be in a terrible situation. Because they are willing to do so we see a part of those dilinquent mortgages get modified and never become bank owned.
“Some Banks are making a strong effort to help with short sales,” Steve said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s crazy.” Steve Gould is an appraiser and Realtor who works with Tristan Ahumada at Keller Williams Realty. If you need to contact us or want to search for foreclosed homes please visit us at http://www.TristanHomes.com.
Modified by Tristan Ahumada
On the Net:
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http://www.realtytrac.com
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