The numbers come from RealtyTrac. The foreclosure listing firm says the second stage of the foreclosure process - known as "scheduled trustee's sales" - hit a 10-month high in California during November.

RealtyTrac's Daren Blomquist explains - "trustee's sales" or public foreclosure auctions are scheduled by lenders when a homeowner fails to catch up on mortgage payments after a 90-day period.

"Most of these sales are scheduled for December or January that were scheduled in November. So we'll see, we believe, an uptick in that REO category in the next couple of months as those sales occur and homeowners will end up, at that point, losing their property to foreclosure."

Last month, 26,509 trustee's sales were scheduled in California - up 14% from November of last year.