I have typically presented long-term charts of foreclosures to provide a comparison between recent foreclosure activity and that of the region’s early-1990s housing bust. It would be nice to zoom in on that data a bit, however, as it becomes kind of difficult to track the short-term wiggles on such a long time scale. So let’s just acknowledge that foreclosures are currently stacking up nearly three times as fast as they were during the the 1990s housing downturn so that we can take a closer look at the last few years.
The accompanying graph shows monthly NODs (notices of default, which are warnings sent to delinquent borrowers) and NOTs (notices of trustee sale, which happen after the NODs and inform the borrowers that their homes are about to be repossessed) since the beginning of 2005, which is shortly after the time that foreclosures started to rise from their record low levels.
For the month of June, NODs were ever so slightly down from their all-time high while NOTs set a new record. I don’t have much to add to that. Tune in later this week, however, to hear what a couple of local experts have to say about the potential for future San Diego foreclosure activity.
— RICH TOSCANO