America's Most Distressed Housing Markets - Forbes.com
California is a non-judicial state. This means that once a homeowner fails to remedy defaults within 117 days, his or her lender can publicly list and sell the property.
The result? In California markets like Riverside, Sacramento and Los Angeles, homes sold while in some stage of foreclosure represent 50%, 39% and 38% of total sales, respectively. That's bad for the people selling the homes, but good for the overall market's recovery as excess inventory gets burned off.
