Bargains dominated the Sacramento foreclosure auctions held at the Sacramento Convention Center recently, reflecting the still surging foreclosure pace in the Sacramento area.
In April, foreclosure sales in the Sacramento region shot up by 46 percent from 1,202 units in April last year to 1,757 units in April this year. Of this total, Sacramento County accounted for a large portion, with 1,267 homes in the county repossessed or sold at auction during the month, marking a 45-percent jump from 877 units in April last year and a 21-percent increase from 1,049 units in March.
At the recent auction held by a private auction company, a total of 153 foreclosed houses were sold, reflecting a total dollar sales volume of $13.8 million and an average unit price of $90,200. Many of the units were sold at a discount of more than 60 percent.
For those planning to find foreclosed homes for sale in the Sacramento region, they still have lots of chances, as more homes in the counties of El Dorado, Yolo, Placer and Sacramento were bought by banks in April for resale in the coming weeks.
These homes were in addition to units that became distressed or repossessed in the first three months in the Sacramento area. About 17,000 homes were hit with filings during the quarter, representing over two percent of houses in the area. Sacramento was 13th among metro areas in foreclosure rate during the quarter.
The number of homes entering Sacramento foreclosure auctions is surging because of record numbers of underwater mortgages in the region. In the first quarter, a total of 222,076 residential mortgages or 45 percent of mortgage borrowers in the Sacramento-Roseville area had negative equity and another 21,865 or 4.4 percent were approaching negative equity.
The negative equity level in Sacramento was far above the 9.9-percent share in the Bay Area and higher than the 43-percent share in the Oakland region. However, it was far lower than the negative equity rates of three other Northern California areas: Stockton had 65 percent, Modesto had 62 percent, and Vallejo had 60 percent. It was Las Vegas that had the highest negative equity level in the first quarter, as 75 percent of its residential mortgages were underwater.
In recent months, unemployment and negative equity have become the major factors for defaults and foreclosures, as most homes bought with toxic mortgages were already foreclosed upon or still in the modification process.
Over the past several years, the delinquency and foreclosure rate of Sacramento has been surpassing the national rate largely because of unemployment and negative equity. In March, more than 3.4 percent of mortgages in the region were delinquent or in foreclosure, a jump from 3.03 percent in March last year.
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