L.A. County foreclosures

L.A. County foreclosures: Up, up and away

What people feel about this:

Julia says: I moved away from Los Angeles in April 2007 but returned for a few days this week. As I was driving around with my sweetie in the Valley, I was stunned by the number of homes for sale and foreclosures. What a difference 18 months makes.

The third-quarter foreclosure report released by PropertyShark.com last week paints another bleak picture. Los Angeles County foreclosures, totaling 15,749 by their methodology, were up nearly 196% from the same quarter in 2007 when there were 5,322. From the second quarter of ‘08, which had 14,505 foreclosures, they were up 9% in the third quarter.

Countrywideblog If that’s not dramatic enough for you, way back in the third quarter of 2006 the county recorded just 1,539 foreclosures. That’s a more than 923% increase to last quarter.

Burnyhill says: Remember the silly days of 2005-2006 when we were breezily informed that all of the toxic mortgage-backed securities had been sold to dupes in China and Arabia? Guess not

The ZIP Codes with the most foreclosures were, in descending order: Palmdale 93550, Lancaster 93535, Sylmar 91342, Pacoima 91331, Palmdale 93552, Norwalk 90650, Palmdale 93551, Long Beach 90805, Lancaster 93534 and Quartz Hill 93536. For Palmdale 93550 that translates into one in every 45 homes, and for Lancaster 93535, one in every 46.

Who was left holding the most bad loans in L.A. County? Countrywide Homes Loans, followed by Washington Mutual.

Sean says: Comes as no surprise that Wamu and Countrywide were the ones with the most bad loans. They were very aggressive with their creative financing and very lax when it came to income verification.

Serves them right.

We need to get back to the simple policy of “who ever makes the loan, owns the risk.” Then, maybe banks wont give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in liar loans and cry for a bailout.

News article reference: LA Times Blog

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