by Calculated Risk on 10/23/2008 09:50:00 AM

Update: HousingWire has much more: Foreclosures Stalled by Local Legislation in September

“Much of the 12 percent decrease in September can be attributed to changes in state laws that have at least temporarily slowed down the pace at which lenders are moving forward with foreclosures,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.

“Most significantly, SB 1137 in California took effect in early September and requires lenders to make contact with borrowers at least 30 days before filing a Notice of Default. In September we saw California NODs drop 51 percent from the previous month, and that drop had a significant impact on the national numbers given that California accounts for close to one-third of the nation’s foreclosure activity each month.”

From Bloomberg: Foreclosure Filings Rose 71% in Third Quarter as Prices Fell

A total of 765,558 U.S. properties got a default notice, were warned of a pending auction or were foreclosed on in the quarter, the most since records began in January 2005, [RealtyTrac] said in a statement today. Filings rose 3 percent from the second quarter and fell 12 percent in September from August as state laws created to keep people in homes slowed the pace of defaults.

This is a record - but RealtyTrac has only been tracking foreclosure data since 2005. I prefer to use the California numbers from DataQuick to follow foreclosure activity because they have a longer data series. DataQuick will probably release data for Q3 any day now.