The number of California homeowners brought into the default foreclosure process surged in the third quarter, according to the real estate information provider DataQuick.
Notices of default increased in the third quarter nearly 26%, as 71,275 homeowners received the initial documents to begin the foreclosure process. This figure is down 14.4% from the same time period last year, but is less than half of the peak high (135,431 NODs) in the first quarter of 2009.
Lenders filed 68,239 NODs in the first quarter of 2011 and 69,799 in the fourth quarter of 2010. John Walsh, president of San Diego-based DataQuick, said determining what is happening in the housing industry regarding foreclosures can be a “logistical nightmare.”
“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,” Walsh added. “Obviously, some lenders and loan servicers have begun to plow through their backlogs of delinquent loans more aggressively.”
DataQuick said most of the loans going into default are from the 2005 to 2007 origination period.
The servicers who were most active over the last three months in the first formal step of the default foreclosure process were Bank of America with 14,325 NODs, followed by Bank of New York with 11,052 and Wells Fargo with 9,740.
The trustees who were conducting the most foreclosures on behalf of the servicers last quarter were ReconTrust, Quality Loan Service Corp., California Reconveyance, Cal-Western Reconveyance Corp., and NDEx West.
According to DataQuick, out of the 8.7 million homes in California, Sacramento, Madera and Stanislaus counties had the highest probability in which mortgages were likely to go into default. Meanwhile, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties had the lowest chance for properties to default.
