“Within the SF MSA for example there are 4.4 million people in 5 counties. Some cities are down 5% because the crisis has not got there ‘yet’ and some are down 70%”

Anecdotally, we see the same thing in a lot of MSAs DC, & Boston for instance. Question for you? Gun to your head, if you had to take a guess, as to the cities that havent been hit hard yet – at what point would you declare them “safe” or “relatively safe”? I.e., if we were in late 2010 and the picture still looked like this (5% down in some areas 70% down in other areas) I would say the 5% down areas arent gonna get hit hard. Thoughts on that timeline?

The drill-down reports here are very good, and the banking stuff is as well.

Thank you.

JAllen

ALL down significantly by my calculation.

I had a look at Contra Costa county and it was UGLY.

JAllen

I actually really like Bloombergs format. Only the stories and the anchors dont really visibly show they have an opinion.

“What is the point in taking one data point and trying to spin it into a positive when the surrounding conditions make it irrelevant?”

The point is to prove you are honest. To prove that when the real recovery comes (in 2011 as would be my guess), you will be there to say – this really is good news.

The point is what if you, I, Mr. Mortgage, really everyone is wrong? We wont know the bottom until it has passed – as I see it there is about a 1-2% chance well look back at this report and say it was the bottom, and a 98-99% chance that it was a head fake.

Some blogs decide to post ONLY bad news, never even discuss the possibility that good news is a head fake or real – these blogs cannot be trusted and only serve as an echo chamber for disgruntled renters to sit around and call knife catcher all day.

One day, I want to buy a home, I want to quit renting – im not interested in sitting around in an echo chamber being spoon fed more info that fits into what I would like to see.

Thanks for the update/comment! Your very useful blog remains at the top of my daily read list.

Best Regards,

JAllen

Use of FHA-insured loans allowing a down payment of as little as 3 percent represented nearly one-third of all Southland purchase loans last month, up from 2 percent a year earlier.

Assuming almost a third is at least 30% and it was 2% a year earlier then it would be at least 1400% increase in FHA loans YOY. Curious as to what the average down is.

http://www.dqnews.com/News/California/Southern-CA/RRSCA081118.aspx

I prefer to wait to do the CA report until DQ releases teh entire statewide figures, which was not done until Friday. Prior to that it was only Nor & SoCal, which together do not capture the entire state. If you read the statewide report, they do not break out foreclosure related sales for some reason so I have a call into my DQ contact for the data.

They say sales were the strongest since 2006 but I bet foreclosures as a part of sales jumped from 51% to ??? making for the weakest Oct organic sales month on record. I also have to add in the foreclosure data for the month showing new defaults plus actual trustee sales so I can get a true gauge of the market – with SB 1137 screwing up my foreclosure data, it is really tough to do meaningful analysis on that.

I will put out a CA report as soon as they get me the foreclosures as a percentage of total sales data.

Let’s see, I am not expecting a good home sales report for the entire 2009. Specifically because home loans are set to pop off for another couple of years. Here is a concrete example. Talked to a guy in Huntington Beach Ca yesterday, has loan with Citi. Home value down a bit from the top but not hit bad yet, bought in 2004. Says his payment is going to change next year and he is not going to be able to afford it so he is already looking for a mod.

Put 150k down so he is not underwater yet. So while he is not upside down in his mortgage, he is going to be upside down in his ability to make payments if they change next year.

California is in a crisis. The unemployment rate is 8.2%. 10% would not surprise me in the first quarter. How does this fit into the picture? What is the point in taking one data point and trying to spin it into a positive when the surrounding conditions make it irrelevant?

So while you did not get YOUR CA sales report, Mr. Mortgage did put up another post that proved quite lively with over 250 responses, the most in a long time. On that basis, the Mr. Mortgage Kitchen was serving it up.