by Calculated Risk on 5/20/2007 06:55:00 PM

From the O.C. Register: Laguna digs get top bid at foreclosure auction

Winning bids on the 15 properties in Orange County ranged from $225,000 on a Garden Grove condo previously valued at $299,000 – a 25 percent discount – to [$1.95 million on the Laguna home, a 30% discount from the previous sales price].

Many were 15 percent to 20 percent below the previous value, but the bid on a Santa Ana condo valued at $255,000 came in at $250,000, only a 2 percent savings.

This doesn't seem like much of a price discount for a foreclosed property. But this is just the beginning:

As recently as a year ago in April, there were only 22 foreclosures in Orange County, according to DataQuick Information Systems. That rose to 234 this April, but is nowhere close to the peak of 674 foreclosures in October 1996.

... lenders are beginning to turn over their properties to companies like Irvine-based Real Estate Disposition Corp., which oversaw Saturday's foreclosure auction. The three auctions the company is holding this month in San Diego, Los Angeles and Riverside are the first since the recession of the mid-1990s ...

As these auctions become more common, the price discounts, as compared to previous sale prices, will probably increase.