Analysis show that Notices of Default, which indicate the start of he foreclosure process, increased in California by 4.8 percent; while both Notices of Trustee Sale and actual foreclosure sales dropped.  Although a traditionally slow month, with the exception of February, Notices of Default have stayed in a tight range between 40,000 and 43,000 per month- a peak which may simply reflect the inability of lenders and trustees to process additional files.

 High level findings include Notices of Default increased by 4.8 percent, to a total of 42,790 filings. Notices of Trustee Sale declined by 7 percent to 36,292 filings in August. Properties taken to sale at auction decreased by8.6 percent, to 26,309 properties, with a combined loan balance of $11 Billion. Of properties taken to sale, 96 percent went back to the lender with a combined loan value of $10.55 Billion. Third party purchases continued to increase as the discounts offered by lenders also increased.

 Traditional measures of foreclosure activity include Notices of Default, which are unchanged from the beginning of the year, and sales at auction, which are up 32 percent from January this year. Measuring the number of properties currently scheduled for foreclosure requires tracking the actual foreclosure auctions, a service only Foreclosure Radar provides in the state of California. Since January, the number of properties currently scheduled for sale has doubled to 70,000.

 Of these scheduled sales, 61 percent are being postponed at the banks discretion. Beyond delaying the sale of properties I the foreclosure process, a recent report fro the A Mortgage Bankers association also seems to indicate that lenders are delaying foreclosure altogether They reported that while 6.41 percent of all loans wee delinquent, just 2.75 percent were in foreclosure.

 Average discounts offered by lenders on the outstanding loan balance at foreclosure auction averaged 36 percent statewide; with one third of all properties taken to auction being offered at discounts of 50 percent or more. Foreclosure Radar estimates that the vast majority of loans taken to auction are 1st Mortgages, followed by homeowner association liens at 2 percent, and 2nd and 3rd mortgages at less than 2 percent combined. This is a dramatic shift prom previous years, when 2nd mortgage foreclosures were far more common, and is clearly due to lack of equity for these lenders to recover.

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