The Foreclosure Hockey Stick
With the end of the housing boom comes the first signs of the housing bust. DataQuick just reported that Bay Area default notices (the precursor to foreclosure) sent in Q4 2005 were up 11% from 2004.

While an 11% rise may seem relatively small, that doesn’t tell the sequential story. In fact, earlier this year, default notices were still dropping. For 2005 as a whole, default notices dropped 13%. That means that the 11% rise represents a much larger sequential increase.

As my 3 year-old-son is fond of saying (in imitation of his dad), “Soon the blood will flow.”