San Diego County Foreclosures keep on Dropping

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• defaults, defaults in San Diego County, foreclosures, foreclosures in San Diego, homes in san diego county, Linda Moore, median price, San Diego County real estate
• March 19, 2014

Since before the Great Recession, increased gains in annual home price appreciation has kept on helping on the amount of foreclosures in San Diego County.

In February, according to a report in DataQuick released on Tuesday, banks repossessed 141 properties in San Diego County, while a slight drop was posted from January. In February 2013 to last month, the year over year said foreclosures were down 44 percent from 252 closures.

February 2014’s foreclosure numbers was actually the lowest it has been since 2006 according to the San Diego Union-Times. Properties back then were retracted by banks during this housing situation that led to this major recession we are finally recovering from.

 In February 2008, it was a huge improvement as foreclosures tallied at 1,316, during the middle of the downturn of the economy.

“The whole thing with foreclosures is that they occur when there’s no equity,” said San Diego State University lecturer and loan officer Mark Goldman said to the San Diego Union-Times. “They’re most likely to occur when people are upside down (on their mortgages.)”

This situation is not so much a pressing issue anymore, because many residents of San Diego County haven’t faced this situation as often due to the recovery of home values in 2013. Last June, the year-over-year median price reached its peak at 24. 1 percent.

Since then, the process has slowed down, but even though that’s the case, the median price still jumped in San Diego County 14.2 percent, which is priced at $416,000. The median price in February was up from $405,000 in January and 14.2 percent from $359,000 from a year ago according to another report from DataQuick.

A 90-day foreclosure process begins when people of San Diego County possibly lose their job, and you won’t be able to make mortgage payments and achieve a notice of default.

“They can sell, (the home)”Goldman said to U-T San Diego. “They might even get some cash from that sale.”

IN February, default notices dropped as well to 442 properties. This number is down from 551 in 2013, and this number is the lowest for the month of February since 2005, where 290 defaults were filed. In February 2009, the defaults notices jumped to its highest number at 3,471.

By Linda Moore