The Sacramento Bee reports from California. "'Closed' in real estate has long meant the moment when a home loan was approved, escrow was finished, buyers got keys and everybody got a nice commission. Now it likely means the office is empty and your job is gone. Exact figures on how many people in the Sacramento-area mortgage industry have lost their jobs aren't available, but the number is likely several hundred."

"'Unemployment in the area is going to be affected, and it's not just us,' said First Magnus branch manager Heather Fern-Luzzi, who also is losing her job. 'This isn't the end of the line.'"

"Local mortgage veterans say it's hour by hour in their business. 'You have to be in my industry to see a representative come in with all their materials and all their marketing and say, 'We've got this and we're going for that,' said Valerie Harkin, a VP at 1st National Home Loans in Roseville."

"'Then you call them that afternoon and say, 'I want pricing on this,' and they're like, 'Well, they just laid off 220 employees and I'm one of them,' she said."

"Fern-Luzzi of First Magnus remembers the mortgage business during the housing boom as practically euphoric and populated by newcomers attracted to the commissions."

"'The last three to five years has been a great time in the mortgage business,' she said. 'And a ton of people have gotten into it. We got a lot of people into it because they were greedy. They thought this was a great way to make a buck.'"

"'There's a lot of banks and lenders who were not prudent in their lending decisions,' she said. 'I think that was the beginning of the fall.'"

Inside Bay Area. "The mortgage morass has engulfed more workers in the East Bay with a Wachovia Corp. decision to jettison at least 100 home-lending jobs in the region. What's more, Wachovia confirmed it has chopped additional employees in its wholesale mortgage operations in Northern California"

"The number of East Bay job losses in the mortgage industry during 2007 alone now exceed 700. The employees who lost their jobs in San Leandro were primarily loan closing specialists, underwriters and loan processors, said Don Vecchiarello, a spokesman for Wachovia's mortgage operations."

"'It's a combination of what has been going on with the mortgage industry, the economic climate in the housing market,' Vecchiarello said. 'It's also the integration between Golden West and Wachovia.'"

"'These job losses are surprising,' said Orson Aguilar, Greenlining Institute's associate director. 'I hope this does not indicate Wachovia's commitment to California. We hope this is just temporary and a result of the housing crisis. We hope they have a solution to replace that work force.'"

"'When these outside banks buy banks in our state, we want them to do more than treat California as a distant colony,' Aguilar said."

"It's entirely possible the Wachovia problems related to the California mortgage business could worsen before they improve. Golden West's specialty was adjustable-rate mortgages. And a growing number of loan defaults, foreclosures, business failures and job losses have begun to haunt the home-loan industry."

"Wachovia reported a sharp increase in unpaid mortgages and loan charge-offs in the second quarter. It also set aside $179 million to pay for future credit losses, three times more than what it reserved the year before."

"'This is an overhang that is going to have to be worked off, and it's going to take some time,' said Christopher Thornberg, an economist familiar with the real estate market and a principal owner of Beacon Economics."

"Thornberg said more than a few homeowners got used to spending much more than their basic salaries because they tapped the equity in their homes to bolster consumption."

"'People increased their spending way beyond where it should have been,' Thornberg said. 'That's where the pain will come from. People will have to realize they can't spend as much as they thought they could.'"

The County Sun. "Foreclosed homes are popping up in neighborhoods all over the Inland Empire, and there's no telling when the tide will turn. They are known for their overgrown foliage, a withered landscape, and in extreme cases, graffiti and broken windows."

"Charles Booker, who lives in north San Bernardino, resides a few houses down and across the street from a two-story foreclosure. The home, located on a cul-de-sac, has 'NO TRESPASSING' signs in the front window, and it's front lawn has patches of dead grass."

"Holes with exposed electrical wires on each side of the garage door are where small lamps once hung. Just over the brick wall lies a desolate backyard of dry weeds and plants hanging over a concrete patio and other walkways."

"'Not too many people want to live next to a house where the grass and bushes are dead,' Booker said."

"He thinks overgrown and run-down homes might push down values of nearby dwellings. But he doesn't imagine his own house going down in value, especially since his street's foreclosure isn't directly next door."

"Banks and lenders don't like spending money on fixing and cleaning up properties they've already lost money on, according to David Vermilya, a broker in San Bernardino, which deals with foreclosures in the two-county area. 'They kind of piecemeal it right now because they don't want to put more in it than they have to,' Vermilya said."

"A foreclosed home with dead grass, dead bushes and other messy aspects could easily sell for $20,000 to $30,000 less than a foreclosure that's been cleaned up on the outside, he said."

"'Banks aren't concerned about the neighborhood,' Vermilya said, noting that banks worry more about throwing too much money into cleaning up foreclosed properties."

"On Tuesday evening, multiple foreclosures could be found on Walnut Avenue, a couple of streets down from Booker's. They were spread out from each other, but all of them had a common theme - peeling rooftops, undesirable landscaping, shabby-looking front sides and big locks on the front-door handles."

"Vermilya said time will tell whether or not foreclosures are going to bring surrounding prices down. 'We're working to sell these fast so they don't bring down the neighborhoods,' he added."

"The City Council is worried about first impressions. Specifically, council members don't want 'Welcome to Rialto' signs to be surrounded by blight, trash and weeds."

"Code-enforcement officers have to check up on the 800 foreclosures moving forward in the city to make sure the properties are secured and vegetation isn't growing haphazardly."

"Bob Watson, code enforcement supervisor, said that out of the 281 homes that have been foreclosed, most are open and not secured."

"With large development projects planned throughout the city, he said it seems like a good time for the city to 'put on a new face.' 'I think with the wave of building coming this way, it was time for Rialto to be in the limelight,' Watson said."

The Press Enterprise. "Despite a soft housing market, affordability in most California markets has actually declined in the second quarter of 2007, according to new data released this week by the National Association of Home Builders."

"In the Inland area, affordability nudged up slightly in the second quarter, with 10.5 percent of new and resale homes affordable to families earning the region's median household income of $59,200. In the first quarter, the figure was 9.7 percent."

"In California, just 11.7 percent of all homes sold in the second quarter were within reach of those families, up only slightly from 11.2 percent in the first quarter. Nine of the nation's 10 least-affordable communities were in California, with Los Angeles County landing in the No. 1 spot."

"Overall affordability in the second quarter was still up from a year ago, when just 7.3 percent of Inland homes could be bought by median-income families. That's due partly to the rise in income and partly to a drop in the Inland median home price, which fell from $389,000 in the second quarter of 2006 to $370,000 in the most recent quarter."

"Even with the slight improvement in affordability, the typical Inland home remains out of reach for most people."

"Ten years ago, when the Inland median home price was $111,000 and the median household income was $44,800, more than 71 percent of homes were affordable for local median-income families, according to the national home builders group."

"Robert Rivinius, CBIA’s CEO, said the fact that affordability has not increased despite a housing downturn that has lasted over a year is ample proof that prices aren’t likely to drop significantly, which means families that can afford to buy should consider doing so now, before prices and interest rates start to climb again."

"He also said that policy-makers should recognize that market corrections alone are not likely to allow the hundreds of thousands of Californians priced out of homeownership to be able to buy their first homes."

"'Housing costs in California are driven by supply and demand. Because the supply of new homes hasn’t kept pace with the demand caused by a rapidly growing population, prices have climbed sharply over the years,' Rivinius said."

The Orange County Register. "The California Department of Finance issued a projection that the state population will grow from 36.5 million in 2006 to 60 million in 2050."

"Frankly, there is good reason to doubt that will happen. What seems to be escaping everyone in California is that fundamental and very recent migration changes do not auger well for population growth, especially in the state's more established areas."

"According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, California's population growth rate has dropped substantially. In the past year, growth has dropped by two-thirds from its 2000-05 annual rate. In Los Angeles County, growth has dropped by 90 percent from the 2000-05 rate."

"Orange County isn't doing much better, with its population growth rate having fallen by two-thirds from the 2000-05 pace. The Census Bureau says the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area has lost more than 900,000 domestic migrants since 2000."

"San Diego is also seeing its growth evaporate. The growth rate has dropped 80 percent compared with the 2000-05 annual pace. In fact, San Diego may want to apply for membership in the Rust Belt club, having lost more domestic residents since 2000 than charter members Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo."

"What is going on? Try housing affordability. In the three large coastal metropolitan areas, median home prices have exploded to more than 10 times median household incomes. Historically, this 'median multiple' has been 3.0 or less and remains so in many parts of the United States."

"People have moved inland to take advantage of lower housing costs. But now housing costs are escalating substantially inland and, not surprisingly, growth has slowed."

"California may be pricing itself out of the future. Given the choice between a rental unit 20 miles from the coast in San Diego and a 3,000-square-foot house on a third of an acre in the suburbs of Kansas City or Indianapolis, it is not surprising that places like the latter are now domestic migration winners."