California's notice of default filings, the first step in the state's foreclosure process, rose for the fourth successive month in August, jumping another 16.6 percent, according to the locally based tracking firm ""ForeclosureRadar"":http://www.foreclosureradar.com.
[IMAGE]The company's latest ""data on the Golden State"":http://www.foreclosureradar.com/california-foreclosures also show that fewer distressed homeowners are finding foreclosure relief. Foreclosure cancellations dropped 11.2 percent in August, while more homes were lost. ForeclosureRadar says there were a total of 17,841 foreclosure sales in California last month, up 15.6 percent compared to July.
The state's REO inventory increased by about 4,000 properties during the one-month timeframe and now stands at an estimated 108,000 repossessed homes that have not yet been resold, according to ForeclosureRadar's report.
New foreclosure filings in California are down 16.03 percent from last year, but the pipeline is becoming increasingly clogged. ForeclosureRadar reports that there are currently 155,000 homes in the state in a pre-foreclosure status, another 123,000 properties scheduled for trustee sales, and the time-to-foreclose has lengthened to an average of 287 days.
Starting this month, ForeclosureRadar has also expanded its coverage to include data on Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, with drill-down capabilities to the state,
[COLUMN_BREAK]country, city, and ZIP code levels on its Web site. The company has been tracking foreclosure activity in these additional states for over a year now to capture historical data and provide details on market trends as part of their inaugural reports.
""In Arizona"":http://www.foreclosureradar.com/arizona-foreclosures, ForeclosureRadar found that notices of trustee sale dropped 12.2 percent in August after climbing 28.8 percent the month prior. Banks took back more properties at auction than they resold in August leading to a continued climb in the state’s REO, up 4.79 percent from the previous month and a 60.48 percent increase year-over-year.
Among the highlights from the ""Nevada report,"":http://www.foreclosureradar.com/nevada-foreclosures is that after seeing an increase in the average opening bid at auction in July, opening bids in August dropped by 4.6 percent. Foreclosure sales to third parties increased by 26.6 percent, and lenders took a record 324 days from the filing of a default notice to completion of the foreclosures sold at auction last month.
""Oregon’s"":http://www.foreclosureradar.com/oregon-foreclosures number of properties scheduled for foreclosure sale rose by 17.1 percent in August, as the number of new notices of trustee sale significantly outpaced the number of foreclosures that were cancelled or sold. Overall, notice of trustee sale filings in the state rose by 9.3 percent during the month, and notices of default were up 10.7 percent.
In ""Washington,"":http://www.foreclosureradar.com/washington-foreclosures foreclosure activity decreased across the board, with notices of trustee sale down 15.8 percent, completed foreclosure sales down 10.8 percent, and foreclosure cancellations down 21.8 percent. Despite these declines, the number of properties scheduled for foreclosure sale rose by 2.7 percent and bank-owned inventories increased 9.4 percent.
""Real estate markets are local, not national, and like other real estate trends, foreclosure trends vary a great deal by location,"" said Sean O'Toole, CEO and founder of ForeclosureRadar. ""We are excited to be able to bring timely, accurate, in-depth and location specific foreclosure data to the Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington markets.""