Long Beach Foreclosure Numbers

From RealtyTrac.com, here are some recent Long Beach foreclosure numbers (starting with the most distressed):

90802: 569

90813: 525

90810: 472

90806: 439

90804: 373

90815: 180

90803: 132

90814: 95

As you can see, downtown is getting absolutely inundated with foreclosures. Not surprisingly, downtown and the shadier areas of LB are experiencing a much larger influx of bank-owned properties and the resultant downward pressure on prices.

Better neighborhoods (Naples, Belmont Shore, Belmont Heights) are faring MUCH better on the foreclosure front, which explains the stickiness of prices there.

And yes, there will be added pressure in 90803 and 90814 during the next few years as "Classy-People Loans" implode. However, don't get your hopes up for $150 per square foot in The Shore. The Alt-A/Option ARM disaster will take YEARS to play out and we've already seen how skilled banks are at delaying REOs from hitting the market and how the .gov encourages banks to mark these troubled loans to fantasyland valuations.

Plus, unlike the crappy zips where any sub-prime knucklehead suddenly became eligible for home purchase, the good 'hoods have more established owners with equity. These people (although there are probably not many who resisted hitting the housing ATM) are MUCH less likely to bail simply because they're underwater--they actually have something to lose.

Not so for those who squeezed into Belmont Shore, Belmont Heights, and Naples during the Pick-a-Payment, no-money-down, live-way-beyond-your-means bubble years. I have no idea how many of those "owners" there are in the nicer areas, but you can bet your bottom (tax) dollar they'll moonwalk away from their obligations the second they realize the mid- to upper-tier housing market isn't coming back anytime soon.