California home default cases plunge
Los Angeles Times
By Alejandro Lazo
...The California foreclosure crisis appears to be abating, new data show, as the federal government and big lenders step up efforts to keep troubled borrowers in their homes.
Mortgage default notices — the first step toward foreclosure — plunged 40.2% statewide in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2009, according to San Diego research firm MDA DataQuick. Foreclosure sales dropped 1.7% from a year earlier and 16.1% from the last three months of 2009, DataQuick said Tuesday.
The numbers suggest that the housing market won't be flooded by a fresh wave of bank repossessions, which had been seen as a major threat to the market's recovery...
..."In coastal California, things are looking pretty decent," said Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. "I still think if you get into the Inland Empire, Fresno, Bakersfield, Modesto, people are really struggling because the unemployment rate is so high — so that people just need help to get out from under."...