Foreclosure Notices in Riverside County Increase in 2nd Quarter

The number of Riverside County homes slipping toward foreclosure increased by 2.6 percent in the second quarter of 2012, compared to the same period last year, a real estate information service reported today.

Lenders sent default notices to 5,677 homeowners in Riverside County in the second quarter, up from the 2011 second-quarter total of 5,534, according to San Diego-based DataQuick.

The Riverside County trend was opposite of statewide numbers, where default notices were sent to 54,615 homeowners in the second quarter of the year, DataQuick reported.

That was a 2.9 percent drop statewide from the previous quarter's 56,258 notices and down 3.6 percent from the second quarter in 2011, when 56,633 default notices were sent.

Most of the loans going into default are still from the 2005-2007 period, DataQuick reported. The median origination quarter for defaulted loans is still third-quarter 2006. That has been the case for three years, indicating that weak underwriting standards peaked then, the news release stated.

"The foreclosure process has always been the sanitation department of the housing sector," said John Walsh, DataQuick president. "It's where financial distress is processed. The question is whether these lower (default notice) numbers mean that there's less distress to process, or if we're just seeing distress get processed at a slower pace."

Default notices do not always lead to a home foreclosure, according to DataQuick. Some homeowners emerge from the foreclosure process by bringing their payments current, refinancing or selling the home.