Reported in the Bend Bulletin this morning, Notice of Defaults (the official notice that your bank sends you when you are not making your payment, and they’ve, frankly, grown tired of waiting on you) were about half last month of what they were in September 2010.  This notice initiates the foreclosure process for the lender.  From our experience, this is when most homeowners consider foreclosure alternatives.  One of the most common methods of avoiding foreclosure is a short sale.

It’s hard to say what this means for a market. It is not necessarily saying that people are now making their payments. We’ve seen some banks allow people to stay in their homes for well over a year before serving them with an NOD. We speculate that receiving an NOD has as much to do with internal bank processes as it has with the lack of a payment.