California Housing Articles

Some of these articles are on Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The closest counties to Mohave in both distance and weather. They are usually the first to fall in Cali bubbles and usually in the group that is hardest hit with declines.

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_dataquick17.3e070b0.html

Inland housing sales plummet

12:23 PM PDT on Wednesday, October 17, 2007
By LESLIE BERKMAN The Press-Enterprise

Housing sales fell at a record rate and home prices declined by double digits last month in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071017-9999-1n17housing.html


Housing slump persists

Credit crunch fuels drop in sales, prices in 6-county region
By Roger Showley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 17, 2007

Home sales throughout Southern California plunged last month to their lowest levels in more than a decade, with prices falling in most areas as well, DataQuick Information Systems reported yesterday.
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http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_7198530

Region home sales lowest in 2 decades
Difficulties getting jumbo loans called major factor in downturn
By Michael Rappaport Staff Writer

Blame it on jumbo.
No, not the 1962 Doris Day/Jimmy Durante movie about a lovable elephant.
These jumbos are the mortgages required when a home loan exceeds federal lending limits, and they're a drag on the California housing market.
September home sales in the Southland were at their lowest level in more than 20 years, DataQuick Information Services reported Tuesday, and the difficulty in getting jumbo mortgages was a big factor.

Actually, the sales total of 12,455 homes in the region was the lowest for any month, edging the 12,459 sales in February 1995.

The biggest price drops came in San Bernardino County, off 11 percent to $325,000, and Riverside County, off 10.8 percent to $375,500.

"Things are clearly getting worse," said Christopher Thornberg, a principal with Beacon Economics. "It's going to remain terrible for some time."
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http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_7198220

Lenders that repossessed property slashing prices
BY GREGORY J. WILCOX and RICK COCA, Staff Writers
Article Last Updated: 10/17/2007 08:51:31 AM PDT

Looking to bottom feed in this depressed real estate market?

Try finding a foreclosure because you might snap it up for about 20 percent or more under its recent market value.

Take a foreclosed home in Winnekta on the market for $404,900. The asking price is 24 percent lower than what the former owner paid in June of 2006, according to Realtor Steve Smallson.

70 percent of homeowners who are foreclosed on bought their homes between 2003 and 2005. Homeowners who bought during this period and at the peak of the housing market are likely to be in a negative equity position now.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-homes17oct17,1,6588480,full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true

Southland home sales and prices plummet

Southland purchases in September fall nearly 50% from a year earlier. Prices drop overall, but L.A. County's rise 1.2%.

By Peter Y. Hong and Maura Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers October 17, 2007

Home sales in Southern California plummeted in September to a two-decade low, and a rash of grim housing-market assessments Tuesday suggested the worst is yet to come."We're on our way down and still picking up speed," said Christopher Thornberg, a Los Angeles-based economist who four years ago warned that the pace of housing price gains in the region couldn't be sustained.

Garden Grove real estate broker Patrick Schwier, who specializes in apartment buildings, said he had sold 70% fewer buildings this year compared with the same period in 2006, and recently saw one sale fall through when the potential buyer's loan application was rejected.

Schwier said he saw two more years of falling sales and prices.

"Prices were too inflated when credit was easier," he said, and now home prices, though they've been slipping, still "don't make sense. And they will drop until they make sense."
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http://www.ocregister.com/money/price-percent-down-1894419-last-sales

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Home prices fall, but many still can't buy
Orange County median falls below $600,000, but agents still have trouble moving inventory.
By JEFF COLLINS
The Orange County Register

The median price of an Orange County home fell 9.5 percent from the year before, dropping to $570,000. It is the first month in 2 ½ years that the median price – or the price at the midpoint of all sales – has dropped below $600,000.

That price was down $75,000, or nearly 12 percent, from the peak price of $645,000 reached in June. In the last down cycle, the drop from the peak to bottom was 16.3 percent from July 1991 to January 1996, according to DataQuick.