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Jul 26, 2007 - Knight Ridder Tribune Business News
Author(s): Mitch Deacon
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Jul. 26--VICTORVILLE -- Mortgage default notices in San Bernardino County surged 180 percent in the second quarter compared to the same time last year, while the number of homes lost to foreclosure rocketed 987 percent over the same peri d, a real estate information service reported.
From April to June, lenders sent homeowners statewide the highest number of notices of default in over a decade, according to DataQuick Information Services in La Jolla. San Bernardino County registered 5,141 notices of mortgage default in the second quarter, up from 1,839 a year earlier. Homes lost to foreclosure in the county totaled 1,489 in the second quarter, compared to 137 over the same period last year. The trend toward rising foreclosures will continue to accelerate in the Victor Valley, said Carolyn McNamara, a broker with the McNamara Group in Phelan specializing in foreclosures and repossessions.
"We have not seen the peak of foreclosure activity in the Victor Valley," McNamara said. "My office alone has received 18 foreclosures in the last two weeks, and I am just one of many agents that specializes in repossessions and foreclosures in the High Desert," she said. Analysts attributed the rise in foreclosures to stagnating home prices and sales resulting from a readjustment in the residential market following the homebuying frenzy of 2004 and 2005. "A lot of the loans that went bad last quarter were made at or just beyond the peak of the housing cycle between summer 2005 and summer 2006," said Marshall Prentice, president of DataQuick, in a written statement.
"Appreciation rates for most of that period were in the double digits and lenders let many households stretch their finances to the max and beyond. It's that pool of 'beyond' mortgages that the market is working its way through," Prentice said. For California homeowners behind on their mortgage payments, the median delinquency is five months before lenders initiate the default process. Statewide, the percentage of homeowners in default that are able to recover from the foreclosure process fell from 88 percent last year to 54.6 percent in the second quarter 2007. The are 8.4 million houses and condominiums in California, according to DataQuick.
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