FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY CLIMBING FAST LEVEL INCREASES 72% IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY.Byline: GREGORY J. WILCOX Staff Writer 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. activity surged across the state in the third quarter, soaring soaring: see flight; glider. soaring or gliding Sport of flying a glider or sailplane. The craft is towed behind a powered airplane to an altitude of about 2,000 ft (600 m) and then released. 72 percent 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 and 105 percent 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, as sales plunged and appreciation flattened flat·ten v. flat·tened, flat·ten·ing, flat·tens v.tr. 1. To make flat or flatter. 2. To knock down; lay low: The boxer was flattened with one punch. , an industry tracker said Wednesday. Lenders issued 26,705 default notices to homeowners statewide in the July through September period, up an annual 111.8 percent, said La Jolla- based DataQuick Information Systems. Activity increased 28.3 percent from the second quarter. Third quarter activity was the highest since lenders sent 30,225 default notices in the 2002 first quarter. Default notices are the first step in the foreclosure process and are recorded at the county recorders County Recorder may mean any of the following, in the context of a county:
DataQuick began tracking this statistic statistic, n a value or number that describes a series of quantitative observations or measures; a value calculated from a sample. statistic a numerical value calculated from a number of observations in order to summarize them. in 1992. Activity hit a low during the 2004 third quarter when 12,145 default notices were recorded. They peaked in the 1996 first quarter at 59,897 notices. Despite the surge, the third quarter is still below the quarterly average of 32,653 notices, the company said. The report noted that: Third quarter foreclosure activity in Los Angeles County was the highest since the 2003 fourth quarter when 5,830 default notices were issued. The quarterly average is 11,003 notices. Ventura County's activity hit the highest level since 695 default notices were issued in the first quarter of 2002. The county average is 682 notices. The activity level across the six county region was the highest since 16,229 notices in the first quarter of 2003. The Southern California average is 23,074 notices. During the third quarter the number of foreclosures soared 362.1 percent to 3,424 properties statewide. They increased 76.9 percent from the second quarter. Foreclosure activity rises when homeowners owe more on their property than it is worth, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. prevailing values. If they encounter financial trouble and can't sell the property for more than its worth a foreclosure can result. Most homeowners reverse the foreclosure process. But about 19 percent of homeowners who found themselves in default earlier in the year actually lost their homes to foreclosure in the third quarter. A year ago only 6 percent did, DataQuick said. ``When prices are flat, or going down, fewer homeowners in financial distress Financial distress Events preceding and including bankruptcy, such as violation of loan contracts. are able to use their homes to bail themselves out of trouble,'' Marshall Prentice, DataQuick's president, said in a statement. Statewide, the annual price increase hit a high of 22.8 percent during the second quarter of 2004. Since then it's fallen to 3.7 percent during the third quarter. Defaults were least likely in Marin, Napa and San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden counties and the highest in Fresno, Merced and Riverside counties, DataQuick said. While the percentage increases were large across the state in the third quarter they are coming up from very low levels, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LaPage. ``We're still climbing back to something close to normal activity and if we get back there and it continues to rise at a rapid pace then we will start to look at other things,'' he said. That would include job losses. But so far both the state and regional economies remain sound. ``Other industries are performing well, ironically, including nonresidential real estate,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist The Chief Economist is a single position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of responsibility encompassing the at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. ``And employment is still growing.'' greg.wilcox(at)dailynews.com (818) 713-3743 CAPTION(S): box Box: MARKET DISTRESS Source: DataQuick Information Systems |
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