According to the Central Valley Business Times, CoreLogic reports foreclosure rates in Stockton decreased in July compared to a year earlier. Foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans were 4.38 percent down from last year’s 5.42 percent. However foreclosures are still higher than the national average of 3.13 percent and  the mortgage delinquency rate has increased. The 90 day delinquency rate is at 15.09 percent of mortgage loans, up from the 14.96 percent last year. This could mean that the numbers of successful loan modifications and short sales is keeping the foreclosure numbers down despite the increase of defaults. If you are considering a short sale or would like to learn more feel free to call Pat Holkesvig & Your Home Team at 209.471.6516 or complete our Contact Us form.  Pat Holkesvig and Your Home Team are The Central Valley’s Short Sale Specialists.  We process Stockton Short Sales, Elk Grove Short Sales, Lodi Short Sales, Lathrop Short Sales, Manteca Short Sales, Modesto Short Sales, Mountain House Short Sales and Tracy Short Sales.

Real estate market analysts have been hard at work crunching the latest round of numbers but what does it all mean? Wednesday the news looked optimistic for San Joaquin when it was reported that the area experienced a second quarter decline in foreclosures despite the fact that Stockton still remained 96^th in the nation for foreclosures. However on the heels of that report it was announced that US home seizures had reached a new record and are now 25% higher than a year ago and that California accounted for 1/5^th of the national total. UCLA economists predicted that California is on the road to recovery, but it will be slow stating that unemployment is not likely to fall below 10% until late 2012. This is something to look forward to for San Joaquin county which currently ranks 99^th in the nation for employment and housing prices.

On August 12^th in the post Could This Be The End of Short Sales? we wrote about how On August 17^th  the Treasury was going to be holding a hearing regarding the future plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It was rumored that the Obama administration was about to order the government-controlled lenders to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt for Americans who are underwater.

About 4.5 % of mortgages in the greater San Francisco Bay area are at least 3 months behind in mortgage payments and not yet in foreclosure. This default limbo is different from other real estate crashes because previously there were fewer troubled loans which meant the banks moved quickly on those who fell behind on payments. Today with so many homeowners underwater, lenders just can’t keep up or are purposely avoiding foreclosures in fear of flooding the market with homes. Some underwater homeowners have used the lender default limbo to their advantage deciding to simply stop making payments on their mortgage. Instead using the foreclosure limbo time to save money rather than pour it into a property that may never gain equity. It is all bad news for homeowners causing market instability that could last for years.