Trying to figure out the aggregate housing price decline of a state as large as California is no easy task. For a state with over 36,000,000 people getting a simple statistic on housing is challenging and requires the ability to look at multiple sources of data. During the height of the housing bubble [...] Related Posts: ■ Foreclosures jump statewide by 40% in California in just one quarter! Welcome to California’s Gold! ■ Even the Harlem Globe Trotters Couldn’t Spin Today’s Housing News! ■ Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Huntington Park. Sold 3 Times in 4 Years. ■ Housing Bloggers Unite: The Housing Blogger Network (HBN) has Started. ■ Think Housing Can’t Go Down Significantly in Southern California?

/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} You really have to tip your hat to our politicians.  The House approved the biggest bailout in the history of this country although they are trying [...] Related Posts: ■ Housing Bloggers Unite: The Housing Blogger Network (HBN) has Started. ■ Ode to the Housing Market: Learning to Love the Housing Bubble. ■ Real Homes of Genius: Half-Off Sale in Lynwood California and the Distance Theory of Investing. ■ Stage Two of the Mortgage Collapse: $500 Billion in Pay Option ARMs Meet the Piper in 2008 with 60 Percent Being in California. ■ Foreclosed: Predicting Foreclosures in California. How Many Homes will Be Foreclosed in 2008?

I was digging through the nationwide distressed property information put out for April of 2008. In this data, we have notice of defaults, notice of foreclosure sale, lis pendens, and REOs. This data gives us a snapshot of where we are but also allows us to see where we are heading. For [...] Related Posts: ■ Foreclosure Shrugged: The Issue with Finding an Exact Foreclosure Number. ■ Foreclosed: Predicting Foreclosures in California. How Many Homes will Be Foreclosed in 2008? ■ Foreclosures? Housing Bubble? In Southern California? Impossible! ■ Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Cypress. Wait 5 Months, Then Drop Price by $130,000. ■ Zillowed, Disappearing Inventory, and Free Housing: 3 Major Psychological Reasons Why Housing is Still Declining and Living Rent and Mortgage Free.

You may have noticed that gas prices have gone up recently. I’m just taking a wild guess that you’ve heard of this. For those of us in commuting urban areas we are all too familiar with fuel prices. Gas prices always go up during this time of the year right before the [...] Related Posts: ■ Zillowed, Disappearing Inventory, and Free Housing: 3 Major Psychological Reasons Why Housing is Still Declining and Living Rent and Mortgage Free. ■ Mission Accomplished: 3 Housing Issues: Multiple Bottoms, Declining Dollar, and More Sub-prime and Alt-A Defaults. ■ Hope Now Alliance: Not to be confused with Apocalypse Now Mortgages. ■ Are you a Debt Slave? ■ Mortgage Equity Withdrawal Syndrome. The 3rd Rail of the Housing Led Boom.

Some of this stuff you simply cannot makeup. At this point, I think the majority of folks have come to realize that any legislation trying to help homeowners and lenders is guided by politics rather than good economics. There is a fascinating incident that occurred where our favorite CEO appears to have [...] Related Posts: ■ Digging into Countrywide: When Half Your Loans are in California and Florida. ■ The Housing Wave of the Future: Two Main Mortgage Tsunamis. ■ Foreclosures jump statewide by 40% in California in just one quarter! Welcome to California’s Gold! ■ When will my home cost me an ARM and a leg? ■ What really goes on with Black-matter SIVs. A Micro-case study. My Experience with Prosper and how it is Similar to the Current Mortgage Debacle.

Making predictions is a tricky business. Just ask any political pundit or economist how easy it is to forecast the future. Yet we have enough current data from multiple sources to give us a solid idea that foreclosures, the ultimate finality to housing distress will continue to be a problem for the upcoming [...] Related Posts: ■ Don’t Catch a Falling Guillotine: Housing Free Falling in Southern California. A Deep Look at the Numbers. ■ Real Homes of Genius: Today We Salute you Artesia. 626 Square Feet of Barbie Love for $360,000. ■ Captain Credit Crunch: Homes Sales, GSE Love, and Neverland. ■ The Abyss is Deep: The Housing Abyss is Deep: 4 Major Reasons Why Housing in Southern California is Nowhere Near a Bottom. ■ Blame it on the Ritz: Market Psychology. Blame the Downturn on Homebuilders and Banks.

When Californians say housing prices are insane and belong in a mental asylum wrapped up in a straight jacket, they usually are correct. Even as housing prices swiftly correct we are so conditioned to living with a bunch of crazies that many are actually starting to think current prices make some sense. This [...] Related Posts: ■ The Genesis of the Credit Bubble: Advertising, Deception, and $163 Billion in Subprime California Loans Resetting in 1 Year. ■ Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Covina. Banks Learn a Lesson in Mark to Reality and the $300 Billion FHA Bailout. ■ Are You a Bitter Bubblehead Renter? The Evolution of Housing Psychology. ■ Parallel Universe: Housing Still Hurting on Main Street while Wall Street Celebrates. ■ New Century files for Chapter 11.

There seems to be a crescendo rising from the Southland that we are now nearing a market bottom in real estate. The argument goes a little something like this: prices have fallen significantly, inventory is still at peak levels, and rates are still historically low that the water is now warm for any [...] Related Posts: ■ Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Glendale. When Prime is no Longer Prime and WaMu Dilution. ■ California Budget Details: How the Recession Will Affect Revenues for the State. ■ Don’t Catch a Falling Guillotine: Housing Free Falling in Southern California. A Deep Look at the Numbers. ■ Sexy Bottom: The Naked Truth of the 10 Percent Southern California Housing Drop. ■ California Examined: The Deep Budget Impact of the Mortgage Crises.

A reader sent in a fascinating story from the L.A. Times (hat tip Exit) discussing the impact of the housing market on plastic surgery. If you’ve noticed recently that people are looking less like Hollywood stars and more like average folks, you can blame it on the disappearing equity. Here in Southern California [...] Related Posts: ■ 3 Things I Learned from Watching Property Ladder: Lack of Fundamental Analysis, Misunderstanding of Construction Time Lines, and Too Many Real Estate Books. ■ Lords of Housing: Believing in the $22.5 Trillion Housing Market. ■ Forecasting the Societal Impact of the Housing and Credit Crisis: Recession Trends and Psychological Changes Regarding Housing. ■ The Menace of Mortgage Debts: Lessons from the Great Depression Series: Part IV: Where do we go After the Housing Crash? ■ Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Pasadena. $87,000 off in 2 Months for 937 Square Feet.

California, the epicenter of the housing bubble is facing difficult times. It is becoming rather apparent that this housing bubble has the risk of causing a worldwide recession. It is hard to imagine until you look at the facts how this bubble got out of hand so quickly. The foreclosure problem is [...] Related Posts: ■ California a Red State: Analyzing the Myth of Homeownership for all. ■ The Map of Misery. If Misery Loves Company it must Heart California’s Housing! ■ A Tale of 5 Cities: Not All Bubbles Burst at the Same Time. ■ The Evolution of the Los Angeles Housing Bubble. 50 Years in Perspective. ■ OC Down $42,000 in one-month. Where is the Mainstream Media?