San Diego County and other top metro areas saw foreclosure filings down in the third quarter, while new foreclosure hot spots began popping up across the country.
"Rising unemployment and a new variety of mortgage resets continued to gradually shift the nation's foreclosure epicenters in the third quarter away from the hot spots of the last two years and toward some metro areas that had avoided the brunt of the first foreclosure wave," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure tracking service.
"While toxic subprime mortgages drove much of that first wave of foreclosures, high unemployment and exotic Alt-A Option ARMs are spreading the foreclosure flood to more metro areas in 2009," Saccacio said.
RealtyTrac's Q3 2009 Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report, reported on more than 200 major metropolitan cities throughout the United States on Tuesday.
The United States' 200 major metros saw a 22.5 percent increase in foreclosure filings from 2008's third quarter and a 5.4 percent increase from the second quarter of 2009.
San Diego's figures were down, relatively, with only 1 home out of every 61 that has either been repossessed or is in the foreclosure process.
While the ratio still puts San Diego as the metro with the 20th highest percentage of homes in distress, the rate is down 5.1 percent from the second quarter.
The rate is a 7.2 percent increase over the third quarter of 2008.
San Diego is one of 21 metropolitan areas that had a quarter-to-quarter decrease in foreclosure rate, but an increase year over year.
Ninety-one different metros had both year-over-year and quarterly increases in foreclosure rate, including areas that dodged earlier waves of foreclosures.
Some of the areas with the biggest year-over-year increases were in Boise City-Nampa, Idaho, and Salt Lake City.
The rates increased 77 percent in Prescott, Ariz.
The largest increases were posted in cities not previously a focal point for foreclosure activity in their respective states.
The Chico area of California had almost double the foreclosure activity in the third quarter of 2009 than the same quarter last year.
Chico had a 12.8 percent unemployment rate in August, which was higher than state and national averages.
Chico had the biggest year-over-year increase in California, despite metros like Merced, Modesto, Riverside/San Bernardino and Bakersfield all placing within the top 10 areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the United States.
Las Vegas led the nation, with 5.13 percent of households receiving a foreclosure filing, almost seven times the national average.
Filings rose 54 percent from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.
In Reno, the rate rose 80 percent from a year ago.
In California, Merced had the nation's second-highest rate, with 3.72 percent of households receiving a filing.
The number there dropped 11 percent from the third quarter of 2008.
Stockton was fourth with a rate of 3.53 percent of households receiving a filing and the number falling 3 percent.
Modesto recorded a rate of 3.39 percent, or little changed.
Three California cities were sixth through eighth: Riverside-San Bernardino, California; Bakersfield; and Vallejo-Fairfield.
Reno was ninth and Port-St. Lucie, Fla. was 10th, with filings climbing 40 percent, according to RealtyTrac.
Los Angeles ranked 23rd with 1.58 percent of households receiving a filing. The number of filings there rose 32 percent.
Bloomberg News writer Dan Levy contributed to this report.
Nov. 20, 2009, 11:45 a.m. -- San Diego's web video news: Today's breaking major business events, economic, and financial announcements from the Daily Transcript/San Diego Source newsroom.
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