Spotlight on Sacramento

From the San Diego Union-Tribune (hat tip Jeff):

This summer will see a major wave of adjustable-rate mortgages ratcheting upward...[M]any people who took out adjustable-rate loans in 2005 couldn't afford a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage back then, and can't afford it today. Also, lending standards have tightened, making it harder for a financially strapped borrower to obtain a loan. Many of those borrowers will end up in default. Or foreclosure...

Rising foreclosures and declining prices are not unique to San Diego. Even though we led the nation during the housing boom from 2001 through 2005 and the decline of 2006, other spots have superseded us.

In California, the worst foreclosure rates are clustered around the Sacramento area, including Stockton, Modesto, Vallejo and Fairfield, according to RealtyTrac, a real estate research firm in Irvine.

From Business Week:

The mortgage mess is getting even messier. Literally.

Malnourished and flea-ridden animals, feces-covered floors and urine-soaked furniture, piles of rotting garbage, swarms of diseased mosquitoes—these are the horrors that may await the ill-fated sheriff, property inspector, Realtor, or passerby making that first visit to a deserted home.

And with foreclosure activity well above last year's levels and still on the rise in many parts of the country, nasty surprises have like these become more common.
...
In and around Sacramento, Calif., mosquitoes that may carry the deadly West Nile virus are thriving in the thousands of uncared-for swimming pools on properties left vacant by slower home sales and rising foreclosures. With 30,505 foreclosure filings reported in April, California documented the largest foreclosure total in the country for the fourth month in a row, according to RealtyTrac. In Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba counties, more than 1,500 homeowners handed their homes over to the bank in the first three months of 2007, according to DataQuick Information Systems in La Jolla, Calif.

And don't forget the frogs.