Residents of San Diego county have some good news coming their way: for the month of February the number of foreclosures was the lowest it has been in four plus years, despite the number of delinquent home loans being higher than it was before the recession. For the month of February there were 634 foreclosures in San Diego county, which is the lowest that number has ever been since the winter of 2007. This number is also almost 13% lower than January of this year and 30% lower than the previous year. The highest number of foreclosures for one month was recorded back in July of 2008 when there were 2004 homes foreclosed on.

To officially begin the foreclosure process a bank must send the borrower a notice of default; the number of defaults sent last month decreased 9% from January and 7% from the previous year with only 1278 notices of default sent in February. Notices of default sent to homeowners reached its highest point in March of 2009 when 3800 notices were sent out.

While the news of a decreased number of foreclosures and notices of default is positive, it is important to keep a few things in mind. First of all, changes on a monthly and yearly basis for both of these statistics rely heavily upon lender activity, making them rather variable. Secondly, statistics show decreases across the board when comparing current foreclosure and delinquency rates to one year and five year averages.

Another positive thing to note is that if a borrower receives a notice of default, it doesn’t necessarily mean their home will be foreclosed upon. A little more than half of all homeowners throughout the entire state of California that receive a notice of default end up not going through the foreclosure process because of other alternatives, such as a short sale or loan modification.