Falling home values helped push a record number of Californians -- more than double the previous high -- into foreclosure and out of their homes in the last three months of 2007, data released Tuesday show.
Leandro Hernandez of Chino Hills is among thousands more who could be next. He tried to sell his house in 2006 to get out of a mortgage he couldn't afford but found no takers.
Faced with a house worth less than his loan balance, he's trying to cut a deal with his bank. But if the lender won't budge, Hernandez, 45, says he knows what he will tell them.
"Foreclose me," he said defiantly.
Hernandez knows that an eviction is a lengthy process. "I'll live in the house for free for 12 months, and I'll save my money and I'll move on."
Many have already been forced out or hit the road, helping to drive foreclosures up to 31,676 statewide in the final three months last year. That's more than double the record set in 1996 near the end of the last real estate downturn.
The all-time low was 637 foreclosures statewide in the second quarter of 2005, when home values were still booming.
The wave of foreclosures that began in late 2006 hit first and hardest in outlying suburbs such as the Antelope Valley and the Inland Empire.
In these areas, people who stretched to buy their first home often found themselves unable to make payments as their adjustable loans reset to higher rates, and falling home values made it impossible for them to refinance.
The latest figures, however, show foreclosures are spreading rapidly into areas that were virtually untouched a year ago. The five ZIP Codes with the sharpest rise were in Altadena, Costa Mesa, Pico Rivera, Anaheim and Long Beach.
Woodland Hills broker Eli Tene specializes in short sales, deals in which a lender agrees to allow the sale of a house for less than what is owed on its mortgage so the seller can unload an unaffordable home. He said affluent homeowners were increasingly distressed.
"Those people overextended to get in to those neighborhoods. I have people in Calabasas, Encino, Woodland Hills, Agoura," he said.
Statewide, the median price for a home peaked last year in March at $484,000, then fell to $402,000 by year's end, according to DataQuick Information Services. Southern California median sales prices peaked in the spring and summer of last year at $505,000 and ended the year at $425,000.
