MT. PLEASANT, Pa. -- Default
Research, a provider of foreclosure real estate data, reports that notices of default and of trustee's sales
were up in Southern California approximately 13 percent from the same time last year.
Riverside County was the hardest hit with 9,350 foreclosure recordings: 5,282 notices of default and 4,068
notices of trustee's sale.
"Over the past twelve months, 8.59 percent of households faced some sort of
foreclosure activity in Riverside County," said Serdar Bankaci, founder of Default Research. "This is the highest
rate we have seen in any area that we have covered since our inception in May 2004. Prices haven't hit the bottom yet
and we are still seeing home inventories climbing."
Southern California as a whole saw an increase in foreclosures
of 219 percent from May 2007 to May 2008.
Los Angeles County had 11,770 foreclosure documents (6,396 notices of
default and 5,374 notices of trustee's sales) filed in May 2008.
According to Bankaci, home prices in L.A.
County have come down about 18 percent in the last year, and they continue to decline.
"There are literally
thousands of deals in Southern California," Bankaci said.
The hardest hit counties with the largest number
of documents per household are Riverside (8.59 percent), San Bernardino (6.66 percent) and San Diego (3.70 percent).
In the L.A. area, the hardest hit cities were Los Angeles (2,194 notices), Palmdale (905), Lancaster (859), Long Beach
(530) Pomona (313), Santa Clarita (304) and Compton (267).
In Orange County, the
hardest-hit cities were Santa Ana (886), Anaheim (642), Garden Grove (308), Orange (226) and
Irvine (170).
In Riverside County, the hardest-hit cities were Riverside (1,379), Moreno Valley (1,189), Corona
(1,064), Murrieta (648), Perris (579) and Hemet (527).
In San Diego County, the hardest-hit cities were San Diego (2,168), Chula Vista (886), Oceanside
(518), Escondido (500) and El Cajon (312).
In San Bernardino, the hardest-hit cities were Fontana (1,026), San
Bernardino (929), Victorville (773), Hesperia (520) and Rialto (450).
In Northern California, Default Research
reports that notice of default and
of trustee's sales jumped 268 percent from the same time last year and an increase of approximately 15 percent from April
2008 to May 2008.
"We expect these rates to remain constant for the coming months," Bankaci said. "Even
though housing prices have dropped nearly 25 percent in the past 12 months, we expect to see a leveling off of these markets
within the next 9 to 12 months."
The residents of Sacramento, the hardest hit area of the region with 4,070
households entering into foreclosure last month. Of these, 2,123 were notices of default and 1,947 were notices of trustee's
sales.
In the past 12 months, over 32,000 foreclosure documents were recorded in Sacramento, equating to 6.16
percent of households.
After Sacramento, the next highest county was San Joaquin with 2,973 foreclosure notices
in May 2008.
The lowest foreclosure rates (per household) in the region were San Francisco (.47 percent), Sonoma
(1.55 percent) and Santa Clara (1.71 percent) counties.
