According to the latest from Dataquick, a record number of foreclosure notices have been sent to California homeowners during this past quarter, setting a new ten-year record. Why? Dataquick reports that œflat appreciation, slow sales, and post teaser-rate mortgage resets have contributed to these financial casualties.
The San Diego Union Tribune reports that San Diego County endured 1,182 foreclosures from January through March, 2007 -or almost eight times the 153 logged for the same period last year. The prior record was set in the third quarter of 1996, when the housing market was in a deep slump. Under any circumstances, these are not good numbers but they also fail to reflect the very different housing and economic pictiure that has occurred in San Diego during the last eleven years. We now have thousands more jobs and around 182,000 more homes, which would change the percentages and statistics reported.
The good news? San Diego is faring much better than other parts of the country (Detroit, Cleveland) and state (Sacramento area, Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino Counties) when it comes to foreclosures and were not shovelling snow or wading in water during April, either! So how does San Diego stack up in Southern California? The San Diego Union Tribune offers the following:
DataQuick analyst John Karevoll suggests that San Diegos foreclosure spike may be short lived, which would be welcome news to our local economy. He feels this is so because the defaults principally affect more recent homebuyers, who make up a small percentage of the homeowning population. At the same time, San Diego is on the edge of the bloody envelope. It experienced both the rise and decline earlier than anyone else and may likely be one of the first to recover.
Well, from everything we’re hearing, it sounds like S.D. is going to fare quite well. I have talked to several people just in the last 3 weeks, there are people moving out to San Diego and plenty of them can afford homes in the luxury category. My father actually just sold the Georgia arm of his HOA property management company and relocated to San Diego to focus just on that market (www.cidpmi.com). Some of my closest friends in the mortgage business live in San Diego and La Jolla and they are all very confident that the lull will be short-lived.
Tony: San Diego was one of the first to start crumbling and will be, I believe, one of the first major markets to recover. Inventory in coastal areas has been diminishing and it is a perfect market for astute real estate buyers.