Dr. Housing Bubble 03/31/10

[Crewleader]

Brazilian Style Living in Southern California – MLS Inventory Creeping up, Section 8 Vouchers for Granite Countertops, and California Budget Going Mayan in 2012.

One thing is painfully clear about this housing bubble bursting here in Southern California and that is many of the 20 million residents never venture off their beaten path. Hit the freeway to work, stay inside, clock out, and head back to your segmented area. Variety is having lunch within a few minutes or miles from the hub. You have to wonder how many people are blind to the economic destruction that is hitting from all corners like a financial tornado. Foreclosures are raging and yet you have people gleefully acting as if real estate is heading back to 2006 and 2007 price levels. Those days are gone. If people would only venture out a few miles to see what is happening in their own backyard it would add a new level of perspective.

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/brazilian-style-living-in-southern-california-%E2%80%93-mls-inventory-creeping-up-section-8-vouchers-for-granite-countertops-and-california-budget-going-mayan-in-2012/

[Warpy]

1. "Gated Ghettoes" describes some areas here, too

The security guard is long gone and the card slot that replaced him has been vandalized and the gate is now always open. A quarter of the places are empty, about the same number that was sold to speculators when the places were being slapped up after 2004. Local retail businesses have gone under because business was down across the board even before a combination of reset ARMs, unemployment, and foreclosure destroyed their customer base, already small because so many houses were snapped up by speculators and allowed to sit empty.

At least around here, stagnant water in swimming pools isn't a hazard. It evaporates quickly in this arid desert climate.

Cheap starter houses like mine are continuing to sell, although more slowly than before. The McMansion areas are where the housing depression has hit full force and I feel terribly sorry for anyone there who finally got that dream house, not knowing they were surrounded by people with iffy mortgages and empty spec houses.

[jtuck004]

2. It is an increasingly bad picture out there just using today's numbers, but

then you get this quote in the article

"“(Contra Costa Times) State Controller John Chiang said Monday the worst of California’s budget crisis is still to come.
Although lawmakers are challenged by a nearly $20billion deficit, “the bad year’s 2012,” Chiang said."

So we haven't even hit the bad times yet. And there are other states out there that are likely just as bad...

We are going to need bold proposals and action to ease this pain, both in employment and assets.