CALIFORNIA FORECLOSURES ON THE WANE.Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Daily News Staff Writer Foreclosures in California, which hit an all-time high last year, appear to be declining, with the biggest drop occurring in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , a real estate industry tracking company said Friday. Lending institutions initiated foreclosure foreclosure Legal proceeding by which a borrower's rights to a mortgaged property may be extinguished if the borrower fails to live up to the obligations agreed to in the loan contract. proceedings by mailing default notices to 12,684 homeowners across the state last month. That's 12.9 percent fewer than in January and down 8.5 percent from February 1995, said Axciom/DataQuick Information Systems. It's the third consecutive month that lenders issued fewer default notices than in the prior year. Default notices are the first step in the foreclosure process and don't necessarily result in a repossession The taking back of an item that has been sold on credit and delivered to the purchaser because the payments have not been made on it. For example, if an individual fails to render prompt payments on a new car, the car might be subject to repossession by the finance company, . Lenders in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County issued 16.1 percent fewer notices last month than a year earlier and 20 percent fewer than in January, DataQuick said. They were down 16.8 percent in Ventura County from February 1996 and 15.5 percent from January. In Orange County, the year-to-year drop was 39.2 percent; it was 34.2 percent in San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. County. That's the biggest percentage drop for those counties in the last two years. The decline this year is due in part to the fact that there was unusually high activity a year ago as lenders began initiating foreclosure procedures quicker than they had in the past in an effort to rid their books of problem loans. ``It's a pretty sure bet that 1997 will be the first year of the 1990s that foreclosures will drop,'' said Mike Ela, DataQuick president. Mel Wilson, president of the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. Association of Realtors, said the market for repossessed properties is hot and that they represent more than one-quarter of the group's listings. ``They are still a high percentage of our sales today,'' he said. DataQuick market analyst John Karevoll said a drop in foreclosures this year could push prices up about 2 percent. |
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