As 2011 rounded out the foreclosure data for California, the largest state by population emerged. The results were tepid. Any significant decline in foreclosure rates was not observed. However, that doesn’t mean year over year the numbers are dropping slowly.

Ever since the collapse in 2008, the housing market has been in a fickle state, adding some new starts here, but mostly losing to foreclosures and bankruptcies. The good news is that ever year after 2008 has seen a decline in foreclosure numbers.

In 2009 the decline year over year was almost 20%. 2009 to 2010 just over 10%. 2011 to 2010, well those numbers are slightly lower than 10%, closer to 9%. Lowest month total was (and usually is) November, with around 9700 foreclosures. That number is the closest to 2008 numbers we’ve seen in 4 years.

Although numbers are slowly declining, there are few strong signals that a) the worse is over, b) the number of foreclosures will continue to decline because the economy is picking up.

The fact remains the recovery in California, and in the US in general, is going to be a very slow and arduous process. At this rate it will take 5-7 years before we observe pre-2008 levels of foreclosures. That’s probably a safe timeframe to expect the economy to recovery the number of jobs lost in the 08 collapse.