Lots of foreclosure news this week, none of it good. Yesterday I posted that Riverside was up a little from Jan to Feb. LA county has us beat like a drum. Up nearly 70% from Jan to Feb.
A total of 3,921 foreclosures were reported in February, up from 2,314 the previous month, the real estate information provider reported. In February, 9,228 notices of default were issued, a 47 percent increase over the 6,286 issued the previous month.
This came from a Bloomberg story on foreclosures.
Foreclosure filings in the U.S. climbed 30 percent in February from a year earlier as the worsening economy thwarted efforts by the government and lenders to prevent homeowners from losing property, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
A total of 290,631 homes received a default or auction notice or were seized by the lender, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said in a statement today. Properties that got a foreclosure filing for the first time totaled 161,976, the highest in RealtyTrac records dating to January 2005.
Some of the top U.S. lenders own as many as 700,000 foreclosed homes they have yet to offer for sale, said Rick Sharga, executive vice president for marketing for RealtyTrac.
The banks may be waiting to see how U.S. government plans develop before selling the properties, Sharga said. The lenders and government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest U.S. mortgage financing companies, have already extended temporary foreclosure moratoriums.
One in 440 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing last month, and Nevada, Arizona and California had the highest foreclosure rates, RealtyTrac said. The February total was the third-highest on record. Filings rose 6 percent from January. New foreclosures rose 8 percent from 150,432 in January.
California had the highest total with 80,775 foreclosure filings in February, a 51 percent increase from a year earlier. Auction sale notices almost tripled to 18,831.