Talk of a housing recovery may be a bit hasty. There have been reports of many banks sitting on houses (or refusing to even take them after foreclosure) until the market improves so monthly numbers may look better than they actually are. This CNBC blogfrom Diana Olick (who is normally pretty good, yesterday not so much) has some unsettling news from the once booming state of California.
Default notices surged 80 percent from 75,230 for the prior quarter to 135,431 notices in Q1 2009. That's also up 19 percent from the first quarter of 2008. This is a new all-time high for any quarter in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1992.
Now you may say, well, these are default notices, not foreclosures, and we've got that great Making Homes Affordable adminstration plan all ready to help all these folks. I'm wondering just how they're going to handle these folks, let alone help them. According to DataQuick, the bulk of the loans were originated in late 2006, at the very height and most desperate frenzy of the housing boom, when lenders were trying to get everyone and their brother into a new loan. I wonder how many of those loans are now so far underwater, given the huge home price declines in California, that no modification is going to help.
