The 2026 California Foreclosure Risk Index
Where financial pressure on California homeowners is building, county by county
Original NestCash research, free to read and cite.

Abstract
California is a volume story, not a rate story. In the first half of 2026 the state recorded 21,543 foreclosure filings, more than any state except Florida and Texas, and it ranked third in foreclosure starts and second in completed bank repossessions (ATTOM Data Solutions). But spread across nearly 14.6 million homes, those filings come to one for every 680 housing units, the 18th-highest rate in the country and just under the national rate. Filings were up 13 percent from the first half of 2025, below the national increase of 21 percent. During the last housing crisis California had the fourth-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, and today’s rate is a small fraction of that one.
We built a county-level Foreclosure Risk Index from four public datasets to see where the pressure sits inside the state. It is inland and in the rural north, not on the coast. Fifteen counties grade Elevated in every version of the index we tested. They fall into two groups: rural Northern California and the Sierra foothills, led by Lake County, the top-ranked county in the state, and the Central Valley and Inland Empire, where Madera, Merced, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Butte counties carry some of the highest mortgage delinquency rates in California. Kern County has the highest delinquency rate of all. The Bay Area sits at the bottom of the index: San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Francisco are the four lowest-scoring counties in the state.
ATTOM’s own county data points the same way at the top. The California counties with the worst foreclosure filing rates in August 2026 were Lake, Madera, Sutter, and Mendocino, and three of them rank in our top four.
We score each county from 0 to 100 by blending four public signals, each weighted by how directly it bears on a mortgaged homeowner: market softness (35 percent), mortgage cost burden (30 percent), 90-day mortgage delinquency (20 percent), and unemployment (15 percent). Each signal is min-max normalized within California, so the score ranks counties against one another in the state, not against a national or absolute standard. A county grades Elevated at 50 or above, Moderate from 44 to 49.9, and Lower below 44. One rule keeps the ranking honest: we rank the 49 counties with at least 12,000 housing units. California has 58 counties, and the other nine have too few homes for sale to score a market reliably, so they stay in the data but are not ranked. The 49 ranked counties hold 99.5 percent of the state’s homes. Because some of California’s results lean on inputs that need care, we tested the index five different ways and report which findings hold in all of them. The full weighting, the normalization, and the limits of the data are spelled out in the methodology section below.
Key findings
- California files the foreclosures, but not at the highest rate. It ranked third in foreclosure starts (16,040) and second in bank repossessions (2,644) in the first half of 2026, but 18th by rate, one filing for every 680 homes. In August it ranked 15th, one filing for every 3,291 housing units (ATTOM Data Solutions).
- The pressure is inland and rural. Fifteen counties grade Elevated in all five versions of the index we ran, and none of them is on the coast between Monterey and San Diego. The 23 Elevated counties hold 44.9 percent of California’s homes, mostly because Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Kern counties are among them.
- The Central Valley and the Inland Empire carry the clearest delinquency signal. Kern County’s rate of mortgages 90 or more days delinquent, 1.3 percent, is the highest of any California county with a published rate. Madera (1.1 percent), Merced, San Bernardino, and Butte (1.0 percent each) follow.
- The Bay Area is the safest ground in the state. San Mateo (18.0), Santa Clara (19.8), Alameda (23.2), and San Francisco (23.9) are the four lowest-scoring counties, and they grade Lower in every version of the index. Santa Clara and San Mateo share the lowest delinquency rate in California, 0.1 percent.
- This is not 2009. California’s foreclosure rate was 4.75 percent of homes in 2009, the fourth highest in the nation. At its first-half pace the 2026 rate will be about 0.29 percent, roughly a sixteenth of that and below the national pace.
Methodology
Three limits to read first
We state these before the method because they shape how the California results should be read.
Second-home counties. Median days on market is half of the market-softness input, and in California’s mountain and resort counties it is inflated by slow-selling vacation homes, for reasons unrelated to household strain. To flag these counties by rule rather than judgment, we used the Census count of homes held for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use. Statewide, 2.4 percent of California’s homes fall in that category, and the 5 percent cutoff we have used in several states would flag 23 of California’s 58 counties. As in our Utah index, we instead flag counties at three times the statewide share, 7.3 percent. Thirteen ranked counties clear that line, from Mono County (49.0 percent, Mammoth Lakes) and Plumas (38.7 percent) to Placer (8.5 percent) and San Luis Obispo (8.1 percent). Riverside County, at 6.5 percent, is the next county below the line and is not flagged. The 13 are hatched on the map and marked with a dagger in the chart and table.
The flag matters less in California than it has elsewhere. Six of the 15 counties that hold up in every test are second-home counties, Lake, Tuolumne, Mendocino, Plumas, Calaveras, and Nevada, and all six stay Elevated even when market softness is measured by price cuts alone, which takes days on market out of the score. Two flagged counties do fall below the Elevated line once days on market come out, Mono on price cuts alone and Siskiyou when price cuts are combined with current unemployment, and we treat their grades with more caution.
Delinquency data for 34 of 49 ranked counties. The CFPB publishes a county’s 90-day delinquency rate only when the county has enough mortgages in its sample. In California, 34 of the 49 ranked counties qualify, including every county with more than 100,000 homes. The other 15, mostly rural northern and Sierra counties such as Lake, Mendocino, Plumas, Humboldt, and Tuolumne, carry the statewide rate of 0.5 percent. The rural Northern California results therefore rest on market and cost pressure, while the Central Valley and Inland Empire results also rest on measured delinquency.
Unemployment that has already moved. The Census unemployment figure is a five-year estimate covering 2020 through 2024, a window that includes the pandemic shutdowns. Current county rates over the latest 12 months are lower in most of the rural north, Lake County’s for example falls from 11.1 to 7.2 percent, and higher in a few places, most of all Imperial County, where the current rate is 19.1 percent. Every county in the robust group stays Elevated when the current rates are used.
We kept the standard formula anyway. Changing the method state by state would break the comparability that makes the series useful, and disclosing where the result is fragile is more useful to readers than tuning it away.
Data and sources
We built the index entirely from public and openly licensed data, and we cite each source at the point of use. Market conditions come from Realtor.com Economic Research (county listing data through September 2026). Housing tenure, mortgage status, cost burden, seasonal homes, county housing counts, and unemployment come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five-year estimates (2020 to 2024). Mortgage delinquency comes from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Mortgage Performance Trends (latest data December 2025). Current county unemployment for the sensitivity test comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics. Statewide filing counts, national ranks, and trends come from ATTOM Data Solutions’ published foreclosure market reports. Every dataset we used is free and publicly available.
Building the index
The California Foreclosure Risk Index uses the same formula as every state in this series, a weighted blend of four signals, each chosen because it precedes or predicts foreclosure among homeowners who carry a mortgage:
35%
The share of active listings with a price cut and the median days a home sits on the market. A soft market matters because a homeowner in trouble who cannot sell quickly has fewer ways to avoid foreclosure. See the note on second-home counties above.
30%
The share of owners with a mortgage who spend more than 30 percent of household income on housing. This is direct payment stress on the exact population that can be foreclosed on.
20%
The 90-day-or-more delinquency rate, the clearest early warning that foreclosures are coming. Published for 34 of California’s 49 ranked counties. See the note above.
15%
A secondary driver. We hold its weight down deliberately, because unemployment also captures renters and therefore dilutes a signal meant to describe homeowners.
We normalized each signal across the 49 ranked counties on a 0-to-1 scale, where 0 is the lowest value in that set and 1 is the highest, then applied the weights above and multiplied by 100. The result is a relative score: it ranks California counties against one another, not against a national or absolute standard. We then graded each county by its score, Elevated for 50.0 or above, Moderate for 44.0 to 49.9, and Lower for anything below 44.0. Twenty-three counties land in the Elevated tier, 10 in Moderate, and 16 in Lower.
To test how much the results depend on any one input, we scored the counties five ways: the standard index; the standard index with current Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment, the 12 published months from August 2025 through August 2026, in place of the Census five-year estimate; the index with delinquency removed and its weight spread proportionally across the other three signals; the index with market softness measured by price cuts alone; and price cuts alone combined with current BLS unemployment. When we call a finding robust in this report, it holds in all five.
Other limitations
The index is relative. A Lower grade means lower measured risk than other California counties, not low risk in absolute terms. It also measures leading pressure, not completed foreclosures or filings, so it will not match any single month’s filing counts. Sutter County, on ATTOM’s August list of the California counties with the worst filing rates, grades Moderate on our standard index and Elevated when market softness is measured by price cuts alone. Counties that tie at the published one-decimal score share a rank.
Findings
The index
Ranked from most to least risk on the standard formula. Read the daggered second-home counties with the limits above in mind.
Rural Northern California and the Sierra foothills
Lake County ranks first at 74.6, and it grades Elevated in every version of the index. Its typical home sat 91 days on the market in September 2026, its mortgaged owners carry a 44.5 percent housing cost burden, among the highest in the state, and its five-year unemployment rate, 11.1 percent, is the second highest of any ranked county. Mendocino County (67.1) and Humboldt County (65.4) complete a North Coast cluster, and ATTOM named Lake and Mendocino among the four California counties with the worst filing rates in August 2026.
In the Sierra foothills, Tuolumne (69.8), Plumas (65.4), Calaveras (61.0), and Nevada (55.2) counties also grade Elevated in all five versions. Their owners carry some of the heaviest cost burdens in California, led by Tuolumne at 45.3 percent, and Plumas has the slowest market of any ranked county, a median of 103 days. These are second-home counties, and none has a published delinquency rate except Nevada County, whose rate is low at 0.3 percent. The pressure we measure there is market and cost pressure, and it holds when days on market are taken out of the score.
The Central Valley and the Inland Empire
Madera County ranks second at 72.8 and first in three of the five versions of the index. It combines a 1.1 percent delinquency rate, the second highest in the state, with a 41.0 percent cost burden and a five-year unemployment rate of 10.1 percent. Merced County (62.6) is Elevated in every version, with a 1.0 percent delinquency rate and current unemployment of 9.5 percent, among the highest in the state. Butte County (56.0), home to Chico, and Yuba County (56.9), home to Marysville, are also robust.
Kern County, home to Bakersfield, ranks ninth at 59.1, and its 1.3 percent delinquency rate is the highest of any California county with a published rate. Kern stays Elevated in four of the five versions and slips to Moderate, 48.8, only when delinquency is removed, because delinquency is the main source of its score. Bakersfield had the fourth-worst foreclosure rate of any large U.S. metro in the second quarter of 2026, one filing for every 616 housing units (ATTOM Data Solutions).
In the Inland Empire, San Bernardino County (57.0) and Riverside County (54.3) grade Elevated in all five versions. San Bernardino’s delinquency rate is 1.0 percent and Riverside’s 0.9 percent, and together the two counties hold more than 1.6 million homes. Riverside’s seasonal share, 6.5 percent, reflects the Coachella Valley, but it is below our second-home line, and Riverside stays Elevated when days on market are taken out of the score.
Los Angeles and the coast
Los Angeles County, with 3.65 million homes, a quarter of the state’s housing, grades Elevated at 51.8, ranked 20th. Its owners carry a 42.7 percent housing cost burden, one of the highest in California, but its delinquency rate, 0.5 percent, is at the statewide level, and it falls to Moderate, 46.8, when current unemployment replaces the five-year estimate. We read Los Angeles as a cost-burden story more than a distress story.
Orange County (41.5) and San Diego County (41.3) grade Lower on the standard index, with delinquency rates of 0.3 percent. Both rise to Elevated when market softness is measured by price cuts alone, 51.1 and 52.0, because about a fifth of their listings carried a price cut in September 2026, so we do not describe Southern California’s coastal counties as insulated. Sacramento County shows the same pattern: Lower at 38.6 on the standard index, Elevated on price cuts alone.
The Bay Area: the safest ground
The four lowest-scoring counties in California are all in the Bay Area. San Mateo (18.0) and Santa Clara (19.8) share the lowest delinquency rate in California, 0.1 percent, and San Mateo and Alameda (23.2) have the fastest markets in the state, medians of 30 and 32 days on market. San Francisco (23.9) completes the four, and all four grade Lower in every version of the index. San Francisco has the smallest share of listings with a price cut of any ranked county, 3.7 percent. Marin County (33.0) also grades Lower throughout, and Contra Costa County (38.5) grades Lower on the standard index.
How today compares with the last crisis
California was at the center of the foreclosure crisis. In 2009, 632,573 California properties received a foreclosure filing, the largest total of any state and 4.75 percent of its housing against 2.21 percent nationally, the fourth-highest rate in the country, behind Nevada, Arizona, and Florida (RealtyTrac). In 2010 its 546,669 properties with a filing were still the largest total of any state, at a rate of 4.08 percent. In 2011 California had the third-highest rate in the nation, 3.19 percent, and 10 of the 20 U.S. metros with the worst foreclosure rates were in California, led by Stockton, Modesto, and Vallejo-Fairfield at second, third, and fourth. By 2012 the rate had fallen to 2.33 percent, still among the 10 highest. California’s annual rate does not appear in the year-end reports we could verify for 2013 through 2025, so the chart shows those years as a gap rather than estimates.
At its first-half pace, California is on track for a foreclosure rate of roughly 0.29 percent of homes in 2026, about a sixteenth of its 2009 rate and slightly below the national pace of about 0.32 percent. A filing marks the start of the legal process, not a completed foreclosure, and the 2026 figure doubles the first-half rate, so it is an approximation. The geography has moved, though. The Central Valley metros that led the crisis, Stockton and Modesto, sit in counties that grade Elevated or Moderate today, San Joaquin at 52.9 and Stanislaus at 44.9, while the counties at the top of our index are smaller inland and rural ones. California also holds 306,250 vacant homes that sit off the market for none of the usual reasons, the second-largest count of any state in our Vacant & Abandoned Property Index.
If you are a California homeowner facing foreclosure
This report is a market analysis, not legal advice, but the data points to a few things worth knowing. Most California foreclosures happen outside of court. Before a notice of default can be recorded, your mortgage servicer must contact you to discuss options, and it must then wait 30 days (Civil Code 2923.5). After the notice of default is recorded, at least three months must pass before a notice of sale can be given (Civil Code 2924). You can reinstate the loan by paying the amount in default, with allowed costs and fees, until five business days before the sale date (Civil Code 2924c). If you submit a complete loan-modification application at least five business days before a scheduled sale, your servicer cannot move ahead with the foreclosure while the application is pending (Civil Code 2923.6). And after a trustee’s sale, the lender cannot pursue you for the remaining balance of that loan (Code of Civil Procedure 580d).
Free help is available. A HUD-approved housing counselor can review your options at no cost. Call (800) 569-4287 to find one near you (HUD), or use the CFPB’s housing counselor search. The State Bar of California funds legal aid organizations statewide and points homeowners to LawHelpCA.org (State Bar of California). The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which regulates mortgage lenders and servicers, takes complaints at (866) 275-2677 (DFPI). The state’s California Mortgage Relief Program is no longer accepting applications. Be wary of anyone who charges up-front fees to stop a foreclosure or asks you to sign over the deed to your home.
The full data
All 49 ranked counties, from highest to lowest Foreclosure Risk Index. An asterisk on the delinquency rate marks a county where the California statewide rate was substituted because its own rate is not separately reported. A dagger marks a second-home county, where seasonal homes are 7.3 percent or more of housing and days on market partly reflect seasonal and resort listings. Unemployment is the five-year Census estimate used in the index. Counties that tie at the published score share a rank.
| Rank | County | FRI | Grade | Price cuts | Median DOM | Cost burden | 90+ delinq | Unemployment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake † | 74.6 | Elevated | 22.1% | 91 | 44.5% | 0.5*% | 11.1% |
| 2 | Madera | 72.8 | Elevated | 21.2% | 75 | 41.0% | 1.1% | 10.1% |
| 3 | Tuolumne † | 69.8 | Elevated | 22.8% | 82 | 45.3% | 0.5*% | 8.2% |
| 4 | Mendocino † | 67.1 | Elevated | 21.0% | 97 | 41.6% | 0.5*% | 9.0% |
| 5 | Plumas † | 65.4 | Elevated | 16.5% | 103 | 41.9% | 0.5*% | 9.2% |
| 5 | Humboldt | 65.4 | Elevated | 23.4% | 76 | 42.4% | 0.5*% | 9.0% |
| 7 | Merced | 62.6 | Elevated | 18.8% | 53 | 39.8% | 1.0% | 10.6% |
| 8 | Calaveras † | 61.0 | Elevated | 20.6% | 87 | 44.0% | 0.5*% | 4.5% |
| 9 | Kern | 59.1 | Elevated | 18.2% | 58 | 36.1% | 1.3% | 8.6% |
| 10 | San Bernardino | 57.0 | Elevated | 18.1% | 65 | 38.4% | 1.0% | 7.1% |
| 11 | Yuba | 56.9 | Elevated | 21.0% | 68 | 41.8% | 0.5*% | 6.8% |
| 12 | Butte | 56.0 | Elevated | 23.9% | 67 | 34.0% | 1.0% | 7.5% |
| 13 | Nevada † | 55.2 | Elevated | 20.7% | 67 | 44.5% | 0.3% | 5.4% |
| 14 | Riverside | 54.3 | Elevated | 17.0% | 62 | 39.4% | 0.9% | 6.5% |
| 14 | Napa | 54.3 | Elevated | 18.2% | 81 | 40.3% | 0.6% | 5.2% |
| 14 | Mono † | 54.3 | Elevated | 10.5% | 79 | 47.8% | 0.5*% | 3.1% |
| 14 | Siskiyou † | 54.3 | Elevated | 18.1% | 100 | 35.9% | 0.5*% | 7.9% |
| 18 | San Benito | 53.1 | Elevated | 22.4% | 50 | 42.7% | 0.5*% | 5.4% |
| 19 | San Joaquin | 52.9 | Elevated | 23.3% | 53 | 35.4% | 0.9% | 7.6% |
| 20 | Los Angeles | 51.8 | Elevated | 15.8% | 56 | 42.7% | 0.5% | 7.3% |
| 21 | Tehama | 51.4 | Elevated | 21.1% | 77 | 37.9% | 0.5*% | 5.9% |
| 22 | Amador † | 51.2 | Elevated | 16.1% | 71 | 41.8% | 0.5*% | 5.4% |
| 22 | Imperial | 51.2 | Elevated | 11.2% | 71 | 36.4% | 0.6% | 12.5% |
| 24 | Tulare | 49.0 | Moderate | 18.8% | 59 | 34.9% | 0.7% | 9.3% |
| 25 | San Luis Obispo † | 48.5 | Moderate | 22.5% | 71 | 38.7% | 0.3% | 5.5% |
| 26 | Kings | 47.5 | Moderate | 21.7% | 57 | 33.3% | 0.5*% | 10.8% |
| 27 | Fresno | 47.2 | Moderate | 18.4% | 54 | 33.3% | 0.9% | 8.7% |
| 28 | Ventura | 45.9 | Moderate | 22.3% | 56 | 38.2% | 0.4% | 5.7% |
| 28 | Shasta | 45.9 | Moderate | 22.2% | 58 | 35.3% | 0.6% | 6.3% |
| 28 | Solano | 45.9 | Moderate | 20.9% | 47 | 37.4% | 0.6% | 6.5% |
| 31 | Santa Cruz | 45.5 | Moderate | 23.6% | 53 | 38.3% | 0.3% | 6.1% |
| 32 | Sutter | 45.3 | Moderate | 19.6% | 53 | 37.2% | 0.5*% | 7.2% |
| 33 | Stanislaus | 44.9 | Moderate | 19.2% | 46 | 36.4% | 0.6% | 8.0% |
| 34 | Orange | 41.5 | Lower | 21.1% | 53 | 37.9% | 0.3% | 5.4% |
| 35 | San Diego | 41.3 | Lower | 20.4% | 46 | 38.5% | 0.3% | 6.1% |
| 35 | El Dorado † | 41.3 | Lower | 21.3% | 67 | 37.5% | 0.2% | 4.5% |
| 37 | Monterey | 40.4 | Lower | 18.1% | 66 | 37.1% | 0.3% | 5.2% |
| 38 | Sonoma | 39.5 | Lower | 18.3% | 55 | 38.6% | 0.2% | 5.7% |
| 39 | Santa Barbara | 39.0 | Lower | 16.1% | 58 | 38.3% | 0.2% | 6.4% |
| 40 | Sacramento | 38.6 | Lower | 22.7% | 45 | 33.1% | 0.5% | 6.7% |
| 40 | Lassen † | 38.6 | Lower | 13.5% | 93 | 29.3% | 0.5*% | 8.3% |
| 42 | Contra Costa | 38.5 | Lower | 18.2% | 39 | 36.5% | 0.5% | 6.5% |
| 43 | Placer † | 35.6 | Lower | 21.3% | 58 | 34.0% | 0.3% | 4.8% |
| 44 | Yolo | 35.4 | Lower | 23.9% | 49 | 31.5% | 0.4% | 6.1% |
| 45 | Marin | 33.0 | Lower | 14.6% | 39 | 37.5% | 0.3% | 6.1% |
| 46 | San Francisco | 23.9 | Lower | 3.7% | 49 | 36.2% | 0.3% | 6.1% |
| 47 | Alameda | 23.2 | Lower | 13.1% | 32 | 34.0% | 0.3% | 5.4% |
| 48 | Santa Clara | 19.8 | Lower | 15.8% | 34 | 32.7% | 0.1% | 4.9% |
| 49 | San Mateo | 18.0 | Lower | 11.0% | 30 | 34.8% | 0.1% | 4.8% |
Nine counties are not ranked because they fall below the 12,000-housing-unit floor: Alpine, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Inyo, Mariposa, Modoc, Sierra, and Trinity.
What we will watch
We plan to update this index quarterly, beginning with the first quarter of 2027. Three things will tell us where California goes from here: whether Kern County’s delinquency rate, already the highest in the state, keeps rising; whether the price cutting in Orange, San Diego, and Sacramento counties turns into the slower sales and missed payments that would move them up the index; and whether the rural northern counties that lead both our index and ATTOM’s August list, Lake and Mendocino, stay there.
Sources and data
- Foreclosure activity and trend. ATTOM Data Solutions, 2026 Mid-Year U.S. Foreclosure Market Report and U.S. Foreclosure Rates by State, August 2026 (published September 18, 2026). Used for statewide filing counts, foreclosure starts and repossessions, national ranks, the year-over-year change, the Bakersfield metro rate, and the counties with the worst August filing rates.
- Housing market softness. Realtor.com Economic Research, county inventory core metrics through September 2026. Used for the price-cut share, median days on market, and active listing counts.
- Housing, mortgage status, cost burden, seasonal homes, and unemployment. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey five-year estimates, 2020 to 2024. Used for county housing counts, the mortgaged-owner universe, housing cost burden, the seasonal-home share behind the second-home flag, and the unemployment rate in the index.
- Current unemployment. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, county unemployment rates, the 12 published months from August 2025 through August 2026 (BLS published no October 2025 figures). Used only for the sensitivity test, not in the standard index.
- Mortgage delinquency. CFPB Mortgage Performance Trends, data through December 2025. Used for the 90-or-more day delinquency rates.
- Historical foreclosure rates. RealtyTrac, 2009 Year-End Foreclosure Market Report (via the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission archive), and the RealtyTrac year-end U.S. foreclosure market reports for 2010 through 2012. Used for California’s 2009 to 2012 foreclosure rates, ranks, and totals and the 2011 metro rankings. The 2010 and 2012 ranks are taken from the order of RealtyTrac’s published top-ten lists, and 2026 is a full-year projection from the first-half rate.
- Foreclosure process. California Civil Code sections 2923.5, 2923.6, 2924, and 2924c, and Code of Civil Procedure section 580d. Used for the contact, notice, reinstatement, loan-modification, and deficiency rules. Help resources from HUD, the State Bar of California, and the DFPI.
About NestCash
NestCash buys houses for cash in twelve states and publishes original housing and distressed-property research across U.S. markets. Our original housing research helps homeowners, buyers, and investors understand local market conditions. This report may be cited and its charts embedded with attribution to NestCash.

John is the Founder of NestCash and a leading voice in real estate investing and housing market strategy. With experience across 12 states, he helps buyers, sellers, and investors make smarter decisions using real-world insight and market data.