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Foreclose and Default Trends Stay Near Low – San Diego

Posted on March 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

Foreclosures and default notices in San Diego County edged up in January, but are still hovering around post-Great Recession lows.

Last month, lenders foreclosed on 149 properties in San Diego County and issued 490 default notices, which kick off the 90-day foreclosure process, real estate tracker DataQuick reported Tuesday.

While the overall trend is down, January’s default notices jumped 58 percent above January 2013’s tally of 310. They were also up from the 387 filed in December.

“That’s disconcerting and something to keep an eye on,” said Mark Goldman, a loan officer and real estate lecturer at San Diego State University.

“It’s probably too early to blame it on something like Congress deciding not to extend unemployment benefits. If that were a factor, we’d see that coming up in the next 60 days.”

A year ago, default notices dropped from 878 in December 2012 to 310 in January 2013. They were back up to 551 in February.

Andrew LePage, an analyst for San Diego-based DataQuick, said the reason for last year’s low number could have been due to the initiation of the Homeowner Bill of Rights, which mandated banks not file a default notice while a short sale or loan modification was in progress.

That also could be why the January 2013 to January 2014 year-over-year change looks high.

In foreclosures, lenders repossessed 149 homes in January, up from 136 in December.

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Fed Backs Away from Interest Rate Threshold

Posted on March 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

Federal Reserve policymakers backed away from their year-old commitment to consider raising interest rates when unemployment falls below 6.5 percent.

With the jobless rate falling faster than expected even as other labor-market indicators show weakness, policymakers agreed it would “soon be appropriate” to revise their guidance about how long the era of low interest rates will remain, according to the minutes of the Jan. 28-29 meeting released Wednesday.

Several policymakers also said that in “the absence of an appreciable change in the economic outlook, there should be a clear presumption in favor” of continuing to trim the Fed’s bond purchases by $10 billion at each meeting.

Central bankers are seeking to provide clarity on their plans for continuing to support the economy, both with low interest rates and dwindling bond purchases, after unemployment dropped last month to 6.6 percent, the lowest in more than five years.

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Solar Credits Would Remain Under Clause

Posted on March 9, 2014 | Leave a comment

Rooftop solar customers can hold on to a popular tariff that reduces their power bills for 20 years as the state reconfigures the arrangement for utility customers who adopt solar in the future, under a proposal from the president of the state Public Utilities Commission.

The current “net energy metering” tariff allows rooftop solar customers who feed excess electricity into the grid to receive credits against consumption that substantially reduce bills. The proposed grandfathering clause would apply for 20 years starting with the plug-in date of individual rooftop solar arrays.

The current tariff has underpinned a boom in solar-electricity generation by utility customers, but will be reconfigured by order of the governor and state legislature after investor-owned utilities complained that solar customers were avoiding their fair share of costs for maintaining the electrical grid.

Homeowners, businesses and public agencies have worried their investment in rooftop solar, with a payoff calculated under the old tariff, would be undercut under the new credit system still being drafted.

The 20-year grandfathering period was designed to ensure “reasonable payback that includes some return on the customer’s investment,” Utilities Commissioner Michael Peevey wrote in a recommended decision released late Thursday. He based the time period on a conservative estimate of the functioning life for solar equipment.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Foreclose and Default Trends Stay Near Low – San Diego

Fed Backs Away from Interest Rate Threshold

Solar Credits Would Remain Under Clause

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