California home defaults down 40%

Californians are so used to bad economic news of late (the state's budget is, again, down a giant, black hole; Los Angeles is asking city employees to take 26 unpaid days off this year; and L.A. County is actually thinking about cutting back the "untouchable" County Sheriff's Department) that when we hear news that seems to be really good, we look at it with a hyper-skeptical eye.

And, yet, it would seem hard to find the negative in news from MDA Dataquick that lending institutions in the state started 40.2% fewer foreclosure proceedings against homeowners in California in the first quarter of 2010 than they did for the same period one year ago. A staggering figure by any measure.

In real numbers, this means that 81,054 notices of default (NODs) went out from January to March 2010 compared to a historic 135,431 from January to March 2009. NODs are the first step on the road to foreclosure filings by banks and other lending institutions.