by Calculated Risk on 3/16/2007 09:15:00 AM

David Streitfeld writes in the LA Times: A town right on the default line

In California, Perris is at the epicenter of mortgage problems. From November to January, 177 homes in Perris' central ZIP Code have received notices of default, the first step toward foreclosure.

That's about 1 of 53 houses ... The neighboring towns of Lake Elsinore and Moreno Valley came in second and third.

A few doors away from De Leon's house sits a second empty property foreclosed on by its lender. "A divorce," he explains. "The husband couldn't afford it alone. He was paying $2,500 a month. Ridiculous."

A few blocks away is a third foreclosure, this one only a frame skeleton abandoned by its builder. A young woman who answers the bell at a fourth house .... She pays rent to someone who pays the owner, she says; please go away.
...
There are other signs of distress. De Leon's development, called the Villages of Avalon, has an unusual number of homes for sale, considering it's so new that the Google Earth satellite scan still shows much of it as dirt.

At the top of his street, next to the charred shell of a house that mysteriously burned a few months ago, is a house for sale. The house immediately next door is on the market too. A few doors away from De Leon's home in the other direction is a third house looking for a buyer. Some owners are trying to rent their places out, advertising with little signs on the front lawn.