Foreclosure starts are down all across the West Coast for December. Reduced filings were reported in California, Nevada and Washington. Nevada showed drops of 14%.
According to ForeclosureRadar the drops were due to the closing of trustee sale locations in California. Riverside County passed an ordinance prohibiting solicitation on all County property. California law only specifies that the location must be within the County where the property is located and must be published in the Notice of Sale. Nevada law states
2. All sales of real property must be made:
(a) In a county with a population of less than 100,000, at the courthouse in the county in which the property or some part thereof is situated.
(b) In a county with a population of 100,000 or more, at the public location in the county designated by the governing body of the county for that purpose.
Here in Reno trustee sales are conducted on the steps of the Court House on Virginia Street.
The slow down in Nevada was attributed to AB 284 which established new foreclosure rules requiring the lender and trustee to certify that they have done everything correctly.
“Nevada’s new foreclosure rules appear on track to bring a near complete halt to foreclosures in that state,” said Sean O’Toole, founder and chief executive officer of ForeclosureRadar.
“In the near term this will certainly help homeowners who were facing foreclosure, eviction, and potentially deficiency judgements. Longer term, we believe there will be unintended consequences for the state as business declines for the many real estate related companies that would normally service, resell and finance those foreclosures.”