For the first time since 2007, there are fewer California homeowners receiving foreclosure notices after the first quarter of this year.
According to San Diego-based DataQuick, there were 68,239 notices of default recorded in California from January to March, a 2.2% decline from the previous quarter and down 15.8% from the same time last year.
Last quarter’s activity was the lowest since 53,493 notices of default were received in the second quarter of 2007. The state record for default notices was 135,431 filed in the first quarter of 2009.
“Lenders and servicers have put various temporary holds on foreclosure filings while they work on procedural issues and respond to regulatory and legal challenges,” said John Walsh, president of DataQuick. “It’s unclear how much of last quarter’s decline can be attributed to market factors and strategic decisions, and how much can be attributed to the formalities of the foreclosure process.”
DataQuick said most of the defaults are from loans made between 2005 and 2007.
California’s wealthiest zip codes where median sale prices are $800,000 or more posted a 5.8% quarter-to-quarter increase in default notices. However, zip codes with median sale prices below $200,000 saw first-quarter defaults decrease by 5.5% from the previous quarter.
Mortgages were least likely to go into default in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo Counties, according to DataQuick. The areas with the highest probability for defaults were Tulare, Madera and San Joaquin Counties.
DataQuick also found that trustee's deeds were up 21.5% from the previous quarter, with 43,052.
Just like mortgage defaults, neighborhoods with lower sale prices had the most foreclosure deeds. DataQuick said there was a 22% quarter-to-quarter increase in deeds for these zip codes, while the wealthier communities only had an increase of 7%.
The servicers who had the most active loans in the foreclosure process last quarter were JPMorgan Chase (9,634), Wells Fargo (8,329) and Bank of America (7,158).
The trustees that pursued the highest number of defaults were ReconTrust Co., mostly for Bank of America and MERS, Quality Loan Service Corp., on behalf of Bank of America, California Reconveyance Corp., representing JP Morgan Chase, NDEx West for Wells Fargo, and Cal-Western Reconveyance Corp., also for Wells Fargo.
