New Study Shows California Foreclosure Homes Surging to Record Levels
May 21st, 2008 by 
Joseph Smith
The California Research Bureau came back with the results of a report on the California foreclosures market this week, and officials are now saying that the problem is even more severe than they had previously thought. The report was commissioned by The Assembly Banking and Finance Committee to determine how the economy and citizens of California were being effected by the huge foreclosure surge.
The report showed that California is bearing the brunt of the national foreclosure crisis and that record numbers of families are losing their homes to foreclosure. Estimates on the total number of home foreclosures in California from 2006 to 2009 vary from 170,000 to 440,000, so while there is some discrepancy, the total shows that somewhere between 3 and 8% of all homes in California have been foreclosed on, and even the low end of that spectrum is hugely above the national average.
The study also shows that buyers who bought homes in 2006 or 2007 bought at the height of inflated prices, and now that they have fallen so low, those buyers are experiencing negative equity gain in their investments. This disallows them from selling to avoid a foreclosure, and is leading to huge surges across the state.
The study highlights that while the state is helping lenders and homeowners modify loans, they need to be doing much more to curb the foreclosures, which are approaching record numbers, and in some areas, well above record numbers.
