'California: Ground Zero for America’s Foreclosure Crisis'

from newamericamedia............

''The pace of foreclosures ebbed following the eruption of the “robo-signing” scandal, in which loan servicers approved foreclosures without looking at the underlying documents. Banks halted foreclosures over the last several months temporarily to overhaul their protocols.

But foreclosures are expected to pick up in the months ahead. An estimated 1 million foreclosure actions that should have taken place this year will now happen in 2012, according to Daren Blomquist, director of marketing and communications with Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.

“That’s not because 1 million people have avoided foreclosure over the long term, it’s because the process has slowed,” he said, noting that the time it takes to complete a foreclosure has doubled in the last four years from 154 to 318 days.

Bottom line: the foreclosure crisis is far from over.

Dimensions of California’s housing crisis

In California, an estimated 1.2 million homeowners have lost their homes to foreclosure since 2008. An additional 800,000 homes are expected to receive foreclosure notices by 2012, according to a report by RE-Fund California Campaign, citing data from RealtyTrac and Moody Analytics.

Despite the wave of foreclosures, few policies at the state or federal level are giving homeowners relief. The federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is the main policy put forth to staunch the foreclosure crisis. It has largely failed, as banks have modified a mere fraction of the loans of troubled homeowners. To date, the number of permanent modifications through the program hovers around 730,000. In California, while 1.2 million homeowners have faced foreclosure in the last three years, only 122,577 borrowers received permanent modifications under the program"...............READ MORE