LOS ANGELES - Home foreclosures in California soared 228 percent in the past three months from a year ago, a real estate tracking firm said Thursday.
A total of 79,511 homes were lost in the quarter ending Sept. 30, compared to 24,209 in the same period last year, MDA DataQuick said.
The third quarter saw the largest number of foreclosures since the company started tracking the figures in 1988.
The flood of foreclosed homes is feeding steep plunges in home prices around the state.
A total of 63,316 homes were repossessed in the second quarter of this year ending June 30.
However, in the most recent quarter, California saw its first drop in three years in the number of mortgage default notices - the first steps toward foreclosure - filed against state homeowners, as a change in the state's formal foreclosure process took effect.
Default notices were down 22.5 percent from the previous quarter but up 29.9 percent from the same period last year.
If the procedural change hadn't kicked in during early September, the third-quarter default filings would have been about the same as the record 121,673 filed in the previous quarter, DataQuick said.
"A lot of the market's distress is working its way through the system and the spectacular jumps in activity may be behind us," said John Walsh, DataQuick president. "Or it may be that those processing the default paperwork are just maxed out."
