Central Valley still leads nation’s foreclosures

IRVINE
December 6, 2012 6:28am

Foreclosure-related sales accounted for 54 percent of all residential sales in Modesto in the third quarter, putting the Central Valley city at the head of the list as having the highest foreclosure rate of any of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas, according to a report from foreclosure information company RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine.

Six other California metro areas were in the top 10 in terms of percentage of foreclosure-related sales: Stockton (53 percent); Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (47 percent), Sacramento (40 percent), Bakersfield (39 percent), Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura (36 percent), and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (34 percent).

Metro areas outside of California with percentage of foreclosure-related sales ranking among the top 10 were Atlanta (41 percent), Tucson, Ariz., (40 percent), and Phoenix (34 percent).

A total of 193,059 U.S. properties in some stage of foreclosure or bank-owned (REO) were sold during the third quarter, an increase of 21 percent from the previous quarter, but still down 3 percent from the third quarter of 2011.

Foreclosure-related sales accounted for 19 percent of all U.S. residential sales during the third quarter -- down from 20 percent in the previous quarter but the same level as in the third quarter of 2011, says RealtyTrac.