Numbers for January 2007 are out and the Central Valley of California is down 3.5% year over year. So much for prices going up, as per ALL the local realtors.
From the report comes a note about the inventory overhang, see your Econ 101 textbook for an answer to the supply/demand equation:
“The unsold inventory of existing homes jumped to 9.1 months in January, after hovering around the long-run average of 7 months since mid-2006,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “There was a slight increase in statewide listings last month, which is characteristic of the start of the year. However, listings remained near the long-run average. As such, the increase in the unsold inventory index--the ratio of listings to sales--was driven primarily by the sales decline.”
http://www.bakersfieldbubbl...
http://www.dailykos.com/sto...
BTW - I am not a left winger. I only noriced they picked me for a story beause of the IP stats I receive on my blog.
The story running in todays newspaper is only the beginning of the coming tsunami of foreclosures. This market will be flooded with bad loans and the morons who took out these loans. The Californian should have been running stories educating people on the home buying process instead of puff pieces on the local real estate moguls.
Don't fall victim to their sad stories - no government bailouts. Restitution will need to come from the greedy Realtors, builders and mortgage brokers. It is estimated that 1 trillion dollars of ARM's will adjust this year -- http://bakersfieldbubble.bl... - and another 1.5 trillion will adjust in 2008. The sob stories will fill the newspaper everyday - see the "public notices" section.
This town was sold a bill of goods that it can't afford - "buy now or be priced out forever", "now is a great time to buy", "do whatever you can to get a home, since real estate only goes up", "they are not making anymore land", etc... The seller was your local Realtor and mortgage broker. Believe them at your own financial peril!
