2,033 San Diegans went into default on their mortgages in July. This is up 19 percent from June and up 157 percent from July 2006. Even adjusting for regional growth, as the blue line on the accompanying graph indicates, the rate of default absolutely dwarfs anything we saw during the early-1990s recession and housing bust.

The rate at which lenders actually foreclosed on delinquent homeowners was slightly less scary. Trustee sales in July weighed in at 686, a decline of 7 percent from June. However, such foreclosure sales are still up 261 percent from July 2006 and are occurring at faster pace than they did in any but a few months of the 1990s.

Readers seeking more detail on the import of these numbers may be interested in last month's foreclosure update, which is quite a bit heavier on the editorializing, or in a recent article about housing demand and must-sell supply.

— RICH TOSCANO