Filing the notice of default is the first step in the foreclosure process. The notice includes the troubled property and a legal description of the case. Lis pendens is referred in some publications as pre-foreclosure because it occurs before the foreclosure. In the event that the defendant failed to avoid foreclosure, the troubled property will be sold in a foreclosure sale.

Results from a recent market study showed that the number of notices of default filed in seven of the eight counties declined by 15 percent in August compared with July. The biggest drop in filings was registered in Cook County, Illinois and Riverside, California. In Riverside, pre-foreclosure numbers declined by almost 41 percent and 31 percent in Cook County.

Miami-Dade County in Florida registered the smallest pre-foreclosure drop rate of .27 percent in August. According to industry experts, Miami-Dade helped push up Florida’s rank in the foreclosure rate list in the country.

Out of the eight counties studied, only Maricopa posted an increase in foreclosure filings by 2.44 percent in August. Counties that posted a drop in the number of foreclosure filings are Los Angeles by 17.83 percent, San Diego by 15.58 percent, Orange by 16 percent and San Bernardino by 9.86 percent.

On the other hand, in Stamford, Connecticut, foreclosure filings continued to rise despite hope for a housing market rebound. In the first half of this year, foreclosure filings in the city rose to 2,380, which is more than 68 percent from the 1,414 filed for the same period the previous year. The six-month figure also represented a 70 percent increase compared with the last six months of 2008.

According to industry experts, the number of foreclosure filings does not reflect the true state of the foreclosure problem as not all postings resulted to actual foreclosures. Additionally, experts said that despite the slowing of lis pendens in some areas, there is still a great possibility that the numbers will pick up speed again due to the growing unemployment rate.

Lis pendens is a written document notifying the property owner and the court that the property owner has failed to make payments within a certain period. It is the first stage of the foreclosure process in judicial foreclosure states. It is called notice of default in non-judicial foreclosure states.

The lis pendens document includes a legal description of the targeted property and also involves the property in the lawsuit.

In some publications, lis pendens is also called pre-foreclosure because it precedes foreclosure. If the defendant is unable to resolve the pending lawsuit, the property described in the lis pendens is sold by the trustee in a foreclosure auction.

In the study conducted by Default Research, the number of lis pendens filed in the eight counties dropped in August by an average of 15 percent compared to July. The counties which had the biggest drop rates were Riverside, California and Cook County, which encompasses Chicago. Pre-foreclosures fell by nearly 41 percent in Riverside while pre-foreclosures dropped by more than 31 percent in Cook County.

The county which had the smallest drop rate in lis pendens compared to July was Miami-Dade County, which experienced only 0.27-percent drop. Based on foreclosure results from other research firms, Miami-Dade is a big contributor to the high ranking of Florida in foreclosure rate charts in the U.S.

Among the eight counties, the only one which experienced an increase in lis pendens compared to July is Maricopa. Its pre-foreclosure filings climbed up by 2.44 percent.

Los Angeles County experienced a decrease of 17.83 percent; Orange, 16 percent; San Diego, 15.58 percent; and San Bernardino, 9.86 percent.

In addition, Default Research noted that the number of trustee sale notices in California decreased in August, but its default notices comprised almost 85 percent of all pre-foreclosure listings of the firm throughout the state.

The research firm also said that inventories are declining in many major metropolitan markets and that confidence in the residential market is returning. It added that median sales prices have not started their upward direction in most markets, but it expects home prices to increase significantly before the year ends.

Nonetheless, many housing analysts that the number of lis pendens will continue to increase in many areas of the country because of unemployment and reduced household income.

An increase of 4 percent in total home sales was registered in July compared to the previous month while total sales represented a substantial increase of 32.5 percent from July 2008.

Meanwhile, the number of default and foreclosure filings fell in July to 2,550 filings, a significant drop of 30 percent compared to June, which had 3,640 filings. It was also lower than the 2,670 cases filed in May.

However, despite the increase in home sales, the median sales price for single-family houses in the Jacksonville metro area dropped to around $150,000, which is much lower than the $190,000 median price in October 2008, when home prices began to decline sharply.

The median sales price for all residential types in July dropped to $156,800, a decrease of 3 percent from the previous month and a substantial decrease from the median price of $184,100 in July 2008.

The median home sales price slightly increased in May to $164,200 from the previous month and then slightly declined in June to $162,100. The drop in July became more substantial.

As the uncertainty about foreclosures hover across Jacksonville and other places in Florida, new home builders are still hesitant to pursue pending construction projects. New housing starts in July declined to 276 units, a drop of 8 percent from the 300 units completed in June, based on a report from the Northeast Florida Builders Association.

Across the state, although the number of bank-owned repossessed homes dropped by 8 percent from June, overall foreclosure filings were still higher by 7 percent from June because of 9-percent increases in both scheduled auctions and default notices.

In July, Florida had more than 56,000 of its households given default or foreclosure notices, according to a nationwide survey of foreclosures by a real estate research firm. Over 35,000 received lis pendens notices and over 14,500 got foreclosure sale notices. Nearly 7,000 were repossessed by lenders to add to their real-estate owned inventories.

In a study of metro area foreclosures nationwide, Jacksonville ranked 30th among 203 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the first 6 months of this year. More than 13,500 households in the city received default or foreclosure notices, representing 2.32 percent of all households in the area.