On atree-lined street in central Napa, green lawns in front of modest 1940s-era homes paint the typical picture ofmiddle class suburbia.

All seems in order — except for the one house with furniture dumped on the lawn and boxes of clothing and other detritus scattered on the driveway. An old garage sale sign hangs on the trunk of a shady tree, covered with a second, hastily scrawled sign that reads “Free.”

The two-bedroom, one-bath home on Pacific Street foreclosed on June 30. To a passerby, it seems the residents attempted to make few bucks as an eviction date drew near, then gave up as the deadline passed.

Unfortunately, the trouble isn’t isolated to Pacific Street.

Over the last five months, some 209 Napa County homes went into foreclosure, according to title company reports for all county foreclosures between March 10 and Aug. 6, 2008. Hundreds of other homeowners received notices of foreclosure, indicating that they were a month or two away from facing possible eviction and loss of their property.

The number of foreclosures in Napa County is not nearly as high as it is in other Bay Area counties. Apparently, the Wine Country cache and relatively modest amount of new construction in recent years helped insulate the region.

Even so, more than 200 local families lost control as lenders repossessed their homes. The overwhelming majority of Napa County foreclosures have been in the cities of Napa and American Canyon.

Sadly, some of the 209 homeowners were less than $10,000 behind in payments, according to title company reports.

A homeowner on Michael Lane in American Canyon was only $2,078 behind. A family on Tallac Street in Napa owed $14,242.

Others had fallen delinquent by staggering amounts. A homeowner on Kingsford Drive in Napa had missed payments totaling $55,530 when the lender foreclosed.

Hardest-hit streets

Streets including Harrison and Kilburn avenues and Beecham Street in Napa — and Via Bellagio, Vine Terrace Way and Rio Del Mar in American Canyon — have between two and five foreclosures each.

Harrison and Kilburn are in Westwood, an area of modest homes built to house families during the World War II years. Three or four years ago, values for two- and three-bedroom, single bathroom homes in the neighborhood soared above $400,000, as many residents of the largely Latino community sought a place of their own.

Some took advantage of financing and underwriting options that required little proof of income and banked on the value of the home continuing to rise. Those lending practices have since been discredited, and it is clear now that many of those borrowers took unrealistic risks.

But unlike Westwood, in other parts of California the greatest amount of foreclosure activity has been in newer developments, those constructed in the two or three years before the mortgage and credit crunch surfaced in late 2006.

In Napa County, the majority of newer foreclosed homes are in American Canyon.

The Upvalley cities, Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga, remain nearly unscathed by foreclosures. The same goes for well-to-do Napa neighborhoods such as Browns Valley and Silverado, where there has been little new construction and which feature fewer homes than older, more densely-populated neighborhoods.

“Browns Valley — That’s not a place where you see people buying with zero percent down, or unconventional financing,” said Mike Silvas of Morgan Lane.

“They’re generally 30-year loans with 20 percent down payments,” he said.

“Those are not starter homes,” said Silvas. “It’s not a first time homebuyers’ market, and that’s where most of the trouble has been, at the lower end of the marketplace.”

The Silverado area and Upvalley draw a different set of buyers, he said. “It’s either very high-end properties or condos, and those are usually investment properties.”

“It’s a second home market,” said Silvas. “They’re not defaulting on their loans, they can afford to hold onto them.”

Taking the hit

Stephen Cogswell is director of Fair Housing Napa Valley, a nonprofit agency that encourages affordable housing policies, advises tenants in disputes with landlords and monitors allegations of housing discrimination.

Reviewing the foreclosure numbers for Napa County, Cogswell took note of trends he’s seeing within his own agency and reached some straight-forward conclusions.

“The location of the properties tend to be more concentrated in census tract block groups where we found a high proportion of Hispanic residents at the time of the 2000 Census,” wrote Cogswell.

According the 2000 Census, 9 percent of homeowners in Napa County were Hispanic. By 2006, 25 percent of home purchases in Napa County were by Hispanics.

“A huge number of the folks being foreclosed are Hispanic,” said Cogswell. Sixty percent of Hispanic home buyers in 2006 used lenders whose primary business was subprime lending, he said.

Supbprime loans are the high-interest financial vehicles used in the go-go years by those who did not qualify for conventional loans or who had lower credit scores.

According to Cogswell, 2006 was the peak year for subprime loans. As these loans mature and interest rates adjust, “It is likely that we are only beginning to see a portion of the homes on their way to foreclosure,” said Cogswell.

Many of the Napa County homeowners now in trouble paid between $300,000 and $600,000 for the homes, supporting Silvas’ observation that it is the first-time buyers who are most at risk.

Cogswell explained that even though a homeowner may only be $10,000 behind, “It’s not just the delinquent amount. It’s all the associated bank and legal fees that go with the foreclosure process. Those fees can be extraordinarily expensive.”

As the foreclosure process continues, “It gets progressively more and more difficult to get the home out of default.”

“The problem is particularly dramatic for American Canyon, where our numbers show as many as one in 12 homeowners are currently being, or have been, foreclosed,” said Cogswell.

A foreclosed home in the Rancho Del Mar neighborhood of American Canyon is just one example. Three years ago, the three-bedroom, one-bath home at 211 Carolyn Dr. sold for $465,000.

The current listing price: $219,900.