Rural Central Valley: Highest Default Risk in California

From the LA Daily News:

Mortgage lenders in California are more critically scrutinizing loan applications now because of higher default risk resulting from a shift in sales patterns as the real estate market nears the end of its boom cycle, an industry tracker said Monday.

During the second half of 2005, risk levels for new mortgages statewide increased 28.6 percent across California from the prior six months, said San Juan Capistrano-based HomeSmartReports.com.

The risk factor is lowest in coastal Southern California and the Bay Area, the company said. The highest risk factor is in rural Central Valley communities...

The risk is based on a scale of 1, the lowest, to 100, the highest.
At 6.72 the risk is highest in the Hanford and Corcoran area. The lowest is 0.80 in Orange County and San Diego.

The risk factor in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale area is 1.44, and in Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Ventura it is 1.12.

The biggest jumps came in the Salinas and Santa Cruz-Watsonville areas, while the trend was down in rural areas north of Sacramento such as Chico and Yuba City, the company said.