Trying to make sense of Socal's foreclosure scene

Not easy. Third-quarter notices of default - the first step in a foreclosure proceeding - were up 27.7 percent from the previous three months in L.A. County, but down 11.3 percent from the third quarter of 2010, according to Dataquick. The major banks appear to be picking up the pace in their foreclosure filings, but the process can be so unwieldy that it's almost impossible to get a solid read on what's going on. That's a big problem because foreclosures are at the center of the housing crisis. From press release:

"Figuring out what's actually going on when it comes to foreclosures can be a logistical nightmare. In each case there are at least six or seven different legal entities contending with each other, each with a different agenda and timeline: The original lender, the homeowner, the current owner or owners of the loan, the servicing institution, the outfit doing the actual foreclosing, and the county recorder's office," said John Walsh, DataQuick president. "The way it looks right now, it's reasonable to expect default filings to run at a somewhat higher level than we saw earlier this year," he said. "Obviously, some lenders and loan servicers have begun to plow through their backlogs of delinquent loans more aggressively."

Most of the loans going into default are still from the 2005-2007 period - and they're concentrated in lower-cost neighborhoods.

On primary mortgages, California homeowners were a median eight months behind on their payments when the lender filed the Notice of Default. The borrowers owed a median $19,198 on a median $331,333 mortgage. The median amount borrowers owed at the time the NoD was filed rose about 17 percent from the prior quarter and 27.0 percent from a year earlier. The gains likely stem from some lenders working faster last quarter to get caught up on their backlogs of long-delinquent loans.

Notices of Default

County/Region 2010Q3 2011Q3 Yr/Yr%

Los Angeles 16,189 14,367 -11.3%

Orange 4,938 4,817 -2.5%

San Diego 5,869 5,048 -14.0%

Riverside 8,982 6,923 -22.9%

San Bernardino 7,429 5,504 -25.9%

Ventura 1,643 1,535 -6.6%

Imperial 411 360 -12.4%

Source: DataQuick