Quadruple Rise In Home Foreclosures Hits California For First Quarter

Los Angeles, CA (AHN) - California registered a record-high 47,171 foreclosed homes for the first three months of 2008. The number is a quadruple increase from the year-ago level.

Analysts linked the unprecedented rise in home foreclosures to declining home values and the subprime mortgage crisis. The rising numbers indicate it might be a long time before the housing market recovers in California.

Another 110,000 California homeowners moved a step closer to foreclosure after they received default notices within the first quarter of the year, said DataQuick Information Systems. The 110,000 is equivalent to 1.4 percent of all houses in California.

Defaults likewise went up to 143 percent from January to March. Those in this stage could still avoid foreclosure by keeping up to date with their amortizations, refinancing or selling their homes.

San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff Mike Strickland said most of the foreclosed properties were in new housing projects. Strickland delivers six to seven eviction notices daily, but he said most of the time the houses are already vacant.

"A lot of the homes are only five or six months old. The people got in by the skin of their teeth. They can't afford their payments, they skip," Strickland told the Los Angeles Times.

Yale economist Robert Shiller forecasts a 30 percent drop in home prices, making it the worst decline since the 1930s depression, the Associated Press reported. At present the decrease has been only 18 percent, according to the Standard and Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index developed by the university professor.