Mortgage industry tracker First American CoreLogic reported this morning that 12.29 percent of mortgages in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties in January were more than 90 days late, somewhere in the foreclosure process or still tied to a bank-owned home.
It's up from 11.99 percent in December - and represents a continuing rise in loan trouble regionally. In Jan. 2009, 7.64 percent of loans were in that troubled condition. The percentage rose all through 2009 and is starting to rise now in 2010, mainly as unemployment has risen from the 6 percent range to more than 12 percent across the past year.
Unemployment is expected to get a lot worse still - reaching 13.5 percent this year, according to the Sacramento Business Review, a forecast produced by California State University, Sacramento, and the Sacramento chapter of the Chaptered Financial Analyst Institute.
The full First American report is available here.
Other highlights: Sacramento's 12.29 percent troubled-loan portfolio compares with 11.64 percent statewide and 8.66 percent nationally.
It's still hard to tell what this terrible troubled loan percentage means exactly. MDA DataQuick staffers tell Home Front they still aren't seeing a major jump in Notices of Default that would indicate a new wave of foreclosures coming. It appears that people are being allowed to stay in their homes much much longer - even while in trouble - as banks try to sort out solutions.
But clearly this is an issue that will be with us for some time to come.
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