Three-thousand and fifty-five San Diego homes entered the foreclosure process in January. This is down from last spring’s record-setting levels, but not by much in the grand scheme of things.
The continued onslaught of mortgage default notices makes it clear that the three-month plunge seen in late-2008 was the result of new foreclosure rules, not of any sort of market improvement.
The number of trustee sale notices, which occur later in the foreclosure process, remained near last year’s lows, but this is probably just because the foreclosure resurgence hasn’t caught up with them yet.
Below is a chart showing the monthly default and trustee sale notices since 1990, adjusted by San Diego’s labor force to account for growth in population size.
Mortgages have lately been going into default between two and three times faster than they did back in the 1990s, with the increase in trustee sales even more dramatic. But this time we are coming off of a much bigger bubble.
— RICH TOSCANO