A total of 133 La Crescenta homes last month entered into foreclosure, up from 55 in August and dwarfing the 16 from a year ago, according to the report.
One in 46 La Crescenta homes were foreclosed upon between July and September, more than triple the national average of one in 136 homes, according to the report.
The average foreclosure rate in California was one in every 53 housing units, the Irvine-based firm said.
La Crescenta’s third-quarter foreclosure rate was well above the rest of the region.
While other communities saw a continued increase in foreclosures in the last year, the increase was most pronounced in La Crescenta, where one in 160 homes received filings during the third quarter of 2008, the firm said. That average jumped to one in 80 between April and June of this year.
With La Crescenta’s unemployment rate of 5.9% well below Glendale’s 11.1% and Burbank’s 10.4%, the figures were surprising, said Paul Habibi, professor of real estate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
“I would expect that in a Palmdale-Lancaster kind of community,” Habibi said. “That’s puzzling.”
La Crescenta’s 238 filings between July and September were more than triple the 68 from 2008 and were up 78% from the prior period, according to the report.
Glendale filings rose 2% during the third quarter, to 631, and were 61% higher than in 2008, analysts said.
Total filings in La Cañada Flintridge more than doubled compared with the same period last year, from 29 in the third quarter of 2008 to 68 this year, and were up 39% from the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac.
The surge in La Crescenta foreclosure filings could have been driven by an economic rippling effect, said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac.
