This says it all, bad times haven`t even started, check out ARM resets(wow!)  Now check out the OAR`s ( WOW WOW !) Now for the final blow  the ALT-A`s ( ouch!)

Option ARMS where often written to a little bit stronger candidates then subprime... Some of which new what they were doing and will be fine however:

1. Option ARM's can negative amortize. this means the debtor can end up owing 110 or 115% of what they borrowed before they face a serious reset. In a declining market, this person will be very far upside down on their loan, far worse then any other type of loan. Very likely to walk.

2. Before the reset, the payment is nice and low, as it is below the interest rate. Therefore, these loans, even when in trouble, will cashflow all the way to the first major reset; Thus, they are unlikely to foreclose earlier. In a sense, all the problems will come out later then a typical loan.

3. 85% of these types of loans are just paying minimums, which is a strong indication of future default ratios unlike any other loan product ever.
 

February Existing Home Sales Fell 23.8%

Today's fictional headline, via The Onion, National Association of Realtors: "Sales of existing homes increased in February and remain within a fairly stable range."

Why is this fictional? Changes from January to February are measuring seasonal differences, not actual improvements. January is one of the slowest months of the year for home sales. (We would never report retail sales from December to January this way; We always use year over year data).

What dos that show Year over year changes showed that single family home sales were 23.8% below February 2007 levels.

The national median sales price was also a big surprise, freefalling down 8.2%.

Single-family home sales decreased 22.9%, while the median existing single-family home price was $193,900 in February, down 8.7% from year ago prices.

The best news in the release was the 3% decrease in total housing inventory. At the end of February, there were 4.03 million homes for sale -- 9.96-month supply.

http://bigpicture.typepad.c...

 Bakersfield home sales Feb 2008

includes single-family residences as well as condos and new home sales

396 sales     med $ 240,000( feb 2008)   med $ 281,250 (feb 2007)   -14.55%

http://www.dqnews.com/Chart...

 No good news for a long time coming.......

S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index Falls Record 10.7% (Update1)
 

By Bob Willis

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in January by the most on record, a sign the housing recession is deepening, a private survey showed today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/ap...

 Okay, it's tomorrow!!!

I agree that negative media gets more attention than little Johnny winning the local spelling bee.  But the Californian also knows they can only report truth and they only have so much space in a newspaper to fit it in.  Now whether that truth be good or bad, that's the editor's decision.

The truth is that 25 homes did sell during that week.  So did 26, 42 and 63.  I don't really have a problem with the California promoting real estate all of a sudden, especially when real estate newspaper advertising has dropped and their revenues are dwindling.  Eventually, they will focus more of their resources on the web.  Well, LOOK!  We're blogging!

First American Real Estate Solutions has a multitude of products, but the one I am assuming the one they are using, based on the data they are being provided, is probably MetroScan, or someone is giving them the data from that source.

MetroScan is a property information database that includes parcel maps, street maps, recent sales (not just MLS, but all), and characteristics, along with a whole bunch of information.  When a real estate agent can't find good comps on their MLS, they'll call a title company so that they can pull any For Sale By Owners that wouldn't be recorded in an MLS. 

My feeling is that First American's property information has become secondary to other operations and they are moving resources to cover where they make their buck... furthermore, they've probably experienced a drop in licensed users of their product so the humans that would normally enter the data are few, creating a back log to the first week of February when we're almost through March. 

When I was in the title business, we'd have the newest data from the previous week.  If you want March data, let me know.

 Jon - It's what the Californian does.... uses one single appraisal source and continuiously highlights negative data and ignores anything positive.

Has the Californian included any new home sales data? I have heard some pretty decent new home numbers out of a few of the local builder communities. One actually wants to keep it's sales numbers quiet so the Californian doesn't catch wind and skew, twist, tweak and misrepresent the information.

Just another reason they have to give the newspaper away at the local grocery stores.

 I can't wait to see the Buyers flood,

 You can't wait forever more and more people have been waiting. Its going to bring back  the frustration of bidding for a house and get nothing the housing market is becoming like the stocks stocks are up before you are.

What up must come down and what comes down must go up when its a necessity item.

 Rents are going up there is some good rents out there but you might have to move every few months as people foreclose on the house or apartments. I have a friend he has moved 3 times this year from for-closers

 I just felt that if you were to put the highlights with 25 homes sold, the average reader would assume that ONLY 25 homes sold during that week or time period.  My bad.  I'll keep my mouth shut... til tomorrow.

Jonvaughn, you make some good points.

But for the average reader, we decided to make a map for each month, but provide data as we have it.

For calendar week Jan. 27 through Feb. 2, there were indeed sales from both January and February. They are shown on two maps, one for January and one for February.

We actually started the February map a week ago — but at that point only had Feb. 1 data. Now we have that day plus a full week. Later, the map will be populated with sales for the second week of February, then the third, etc. But some weeks that contain days falling in two months will appear in two maps.

I hope this information will continue to prove useful to readers who are thinking about buying a home and want to see what homes are selling for, and be good information for peple who are just plain curious.

Thanks for sharing the data on bank-owned homes that sold!

— Christine Peterson

And thank goodness for the help those poor, destitute Bear Stearns executives received today...

 Really appreciate those maps, I check them out every month, thanks.

Seniortater, whose this 'everyone' who thinks our economy is out of  the woods, I'm just glad no major bank closed up  shop today.

 This isn't very accurate data.  A better way to do this, if you're going to truely do this on a weekly basis would be Monday through Friday each week.  Not Friday, Feb 1st through Sunday, February 10th.

1/28/08 through 2/1/08 had 71 residential sales (low:  $55k  high:  $750k)

2/4/08 through 2/8/08 had 51 residential sales (low:  $71k  high:  $725k)

Residential includes:  Sgl Family Res, Condos, and Mobile Homes.

For these two weeks, of the 122 sales, 63 of them were Bank Owned.

Also, the same time period in 2007, we had 145 resdential sales, but only 1 Bank Owned sold during these two weeks.  Interesting...

 Amazing how the first piece of "decent" news for the economy comes out and everyone thinks we are out of the woods. Sorry folks, but in times like this, there will be good days and many more bad days to come.