Foreclosures to keep a lid on I.E.'s economic growth, report says
Delinquent and foreclosed homeowners will most likely continue dragging down the Inland Empire's economy for at least another 18 months, according to a report published on Thursday.
The Ontario-Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area ranks No. 1 in every economic-risk category analyzed by First American CoreLogic Inc. in a mortgage risk report. The company is a subsidiary of Santa Ana-based First American Corp. (NYSE: FAF).
Categories include home value depreciation, fraud, foreclosure and an economic-health index.
"The two riskiest (areas) are Riverside and Los Angeles, where (home) prices have declined roughly 25 percent from a year ago and the economy is struggling," the report says, "particularly the labor market, with an unemployment rate that has increased by roughly two percentage points during the past year."
"The combination of rapidly declining prices and increasing unemployment significantly increases the likelihood of poor mortgage performance," it states.
Eight of the top 10 metro areas are in California, including Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Stockton and Bakersfield.
The report analyzes the performance of about 30 million loans in more than 7,500 ZIP codes across the country.
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