Sacramento Foreclosures "Skyrocket" to "Stratospheric Levels"

From DQNews:

The number of mortgage default notices filed against California homeowners jumped last quarter to its highest level in more than fifteen years, a real estate information service reported. Lending institutions sent homeowners 81,550 default notices during the October-to-December period. That was up by 12.4 percent from 72,571 the previous quarter, and up 114.6 percent from 37,994 for fourth-quarter 2006, according to DataQuick Information Systems. Last quarter's number of defaults was the highest in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1992...Last quarter's default numbers were a record in 42 of the state's 58 counties.
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Trustees Deeds recorded, or the actual loss of a home to foreclosure, totaled 31,676 during the fourth quarter. That's the highest since DataQuick began tracking Trustees Deeds in 1988. Last quarter's total rose 30.8 percent from 24,209 in the previous quarter, and jumped 421.2 percent from 6,078 in fourth quarter 2006. In the last real estate cycle, Trustees Deeds peaked at 15,418 in third-quarter 1996.
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Of the homeowners in default, an estimated 41 percent emerge from the foreclosure process by bringing their payments current, refinancing, or selling the home and paying off what they owe. A year ago it was about 71 percent.

Sacramento County Notices of Default: 5,807, 120.4% YoY

Calculated Risk has some nice historical charts of California foreclosures.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Foreclosures and defaults soared to stratospheric levels in Sacramento and the rest of the state last year...Notices of default in the eight-county Sacramento region, stretching from Amador to Nevada counties, were up 106 percent in the quarter. For all of 2007, foreclosures in greater Sacramento were up an astonishing 496 percent, to 10,049, DataQuick said.

From the KSN.com:

The nationwide foreclosure crisis has forced millions of people to move out of their homes. But the forgotten victims are the dogs and cats left behind. In California alone, thousands of these animas have become pets in peril.

Sydney is a two-year-old Golden Retriever and an animal victim of California’s mortgage meltdown. She currently lives at the Sacramento SPCA along with dozens of other displaced pets. "The reason Sydney is here is she was given up last year from people who were moving. And she's a wonderful dog and we've adopted her," said SPCA Director Rick Johnson.

Sydney is one of the lucky ones, because at this shelter, the number of abandoned pets has doubled in the last four months. SPCA Animal Services Worker Sarah Varanin said, "We had about 33 dogs come in on Saturday alone. So it's just increasing every day."

KCRA (video): Mayor Heather Fargo's take on the Sacramento real estate market and budget mess.

This headline caught my attention:


What they really meant was 14 years:

Only 30 percent of Placer County employers are planning to add employees in the first six months of the year, according to a recent survey by Roseville accounting firm Gallina LLP....[E]mployers were predicting the slowest growth in the 14-year history of the survey. About half as many employers plan to add jobs in the first half of 2008 as did in the first half of 2007...73 percent of those surveyed said the weak housing market was hurting business, compared to 56 percent one year ago.

Then again maybe it was a Freudian slip. From OpEdNews.com:

From an historical prospective, the real estate market has always been a gauge of the greater U.S. economy from nine months to 18 months earlier than the overall economy.
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The entire U.S. economy is at the brink of not only a recession, but much worse teetering on the brink of a depression...There have been six depressions since 1837 in the U.S...The cause of every major depression has been land speculation. Economist Henry George discovered this fact 120 years ago. However, never before in U.S. economic history has there been as much land speculation than in the past decade. Land from Florida up the eastern seaboard in New York across the nation to California has been purchased by speculators at the highest rate in the nation’s history, much of it with little money down to protect investors interests.

From Roseville & Rocklin Today:

Last week I got sort of embroiled in a debate with some of the regulars at Sacramento Land(ing). I do enjoy reading the blog but have to remember that the diehard fans there believe very strongly that all Realtors are evil and self serving. It always makes me chuckle when you click on one of their names, like “happy renter” or a host of other equally cute monikers and are directed to their blank profiles. Why is it so hard to believe that most Realtors care about their clients and place their needs above making a commission? We understand being a Realtor is relationship business and doing what is right for the client is right for our business.