The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. "Bay Area home sales in August plunged to their lowest level since 1992, amid a credit crunch that is quashing home shoppers' ability to buy. In some outlying and entry-level markets, in particular, home prices are also taking a hit as foreclosures surge higher."

"'Devastated is a strong word, but when you have 29 homes for sale in a three-block area, that's a lot of homes,' said Jay Bedsworth, a Sotheby's real estate agent who has listed several homes in Brentwood, including two 'short sales.' 'The farther out from San Francisco you get, the worse it is.'"

"For the last year, Andy Wajdak has been trying to sell a four-bedroom home in Santa Rosa that has been in his family for about four decades. The Fresno window blind manufacturer said he has chopped the price twice by $20,000 each time, but still has no takers. Since the family owns the property outright, there is no immediate pressure to sell. But Wajdak worries the market may deteriorate further."

"'At some point we might decide to just dump it - lower the price to where it's the lowest in the area,' he said. 'But I'm not sure we're quite willing to do that yet.'"

The Press Democrat. "Home values are continuing to fall in Sonoma County, according to a report issued Thursday. Home sales tumbled 24.8 percent in August, compared with a year ago. The price for a typical Sonoma County home dropped to $505,000 in August, down from $550,000 a year ago, an 8.2 percent decline. The figure includes new and resale houses and condominiums."

"Increasingly stringent loan qualifications are taking out even more buyers as lenders tighten the money supply with mortgage defaults soaring."

"'That worsened it. The first-time home buyers went away. So the affordability is just not here any longer,' said Alice Curtis, Creative Property Services manager in Santa Rosa."

The Mercury News. "In many of Santa Clara County's more affordable neighborhoods, home values fell compared to last summer. Deepak Satya, a renter in Cupertino who plans to buy a house there relatively soon, said he has noticed some reduction of list prices recently in that city among homes priced in the $1 million range."

"He said he and his wife will wait until at least late October to make an offer, because they expect little competition from other buyers at that time of year."

"'Right now, what's happening is those 'too many offers' situations are gone,' said Satya. ASatya moved to Cupertino about three years ago for the school district. 'Since the day I moved into Cupertino I've wanted to buy a house, but the prices keep going up and up and up. There's no logic to it.'"

"The fastest-moving part of the county's market is comprised of Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos, where it would take about 56 days to sell out the houses for sale, based on the recent pace of sales. The news is worse for sellers in east, central and south San Jose, where it would take 760 days to exhaust the supply."

"It's likely that September and October data will show a more pronounced slowdown in sales. Mortgage brokers reported that some clients who were in the middle of purchases had their loans suddenly yanked away by lenders who had killed certain loan programs."

"The result? Only 713 new sales were initiated in August, said broker Richard Calhoun, who crunches local MLS data daily. That's fewer initiated sales than in any August in at least nine years (when his data set begins)."

The Sacramento Bee. "It's come to this: For roughly every two homes sold in August in the capital region, one house went into foreclosure, according to the newest sales statistics released Thursday."

"Clearly, such numbers are fuel for still more for-sale signs -- now at a record 16,262 in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties -- and further declines in sales prices. The number of sales, meanwhile, fell to a 12-year August low in Sacramento County and an 11-year low in Placer County."

"DataQuick had other encouraging news Thursday for buyers in the region: median sales prices in Sacramento and Placer counties are nearly 20 percent off their 2005 highs."

"None of the numbers, however, deterred Kelly Lawson from buying. He closed escrow last month on a 1950s three-bedroom, one-bath house in North Highlands."

"Lawson is an example of conventional real estate wisdom that buyers who intend to stay in their homes can ride out the current slump and see gains in the future. Asked how long he intends to stay in his house, Lawson answered, 'Till I die. After this move, I am not moving again.'"

The Signal. "Homes in Santa Clarita go fast. But on Sunday, six homes will sell in a matter of minutes, as Kennedy Wilson Auction Group is planning to auction six homes at Deer Creek at Placerita Canyon Estates in Newhall."

"President Rhett Winchell said...he was unsure about the level of competition now with the current housing market. The minimum bid for each of the six houses is $595,000. Winchell said the auction offers up to 40 percent off of the asking price of each house."

"Winchell said buyers are able to bid on multiple properties during the auction. 'If they don't get their first choice, they can move down the line and try the next property,' he said."

The Malibu Times. "Notwithstanding current market 'corrections' following the recent real estate credit meltdown, there will always be a buying audience for the tony higher-end properties of Malibu."

"This is why Todd Wohl, VP of Premiere Estates Auction Company feels absolutely confident that he will sell an (appraised) $12.9 million, Ocean View Drive Malibu home with sweeping views of the coastline in what some say is an unusual approach to exclusive property sales; a live auction."

"'There is a growing inventory of available properties from $4 million up in Malibu,' Wohl said. 'We're seeing the same in Huntington Beach and Newport. The psychology of the marketplace might have changed in recent months, but there is still tons of credit available for these kinds of properties, if you can qualify.'"

"Rick Wallace, a local broker, said he has doubts that auctions are the best way to sell properties. 'This is quite unusual and will probably not become a trend,' he said. 'I can think of only a few property auctions that have happened in Malibu.'"

"Whereas Wallace agrees that sellers can be pretty much assured that their property will ultimately sell at auction, 'it might not sell at the best price the market can bear,' he said."

The LA Times. "Home prices fell in most Southern California neighborhoods and the number of sales tumbled to a 15-year low for August."

"Sales for the month plunged 36% from a year earlier. What's more, 71% of the Southland's ZIP Codes showed price declines, according to DataQuick Information Systems. The survey excluded areas with 14 or fewer sales."

"Nearly 9% of the homes sold last month were foreclosure properties, DataQuick reported, up from 2.2% a year earlier."

"'People just don't have the income to support these prices except with crazy mortgages -- and now the mortgage money is going away, and people are walking away from their homes,' said economist Christopher Thornberg."

"'Virtually every community in Riverside County has massive inventory levels, which almost certainly will require price corrections in order to be absorbed,' Riverside County-based appraiser Michael Mathis said."

"Dennis Hsii is counting on builder desperation to help him buy his first home. This weekend, the Los Angeles technology consultant hopes to renegotiate his contract to buy a $700,000 town home in Playa Vista that has been under construction for the last year."

"That's because the town home's builder, Irvine-based Standard Pacific Corp., is hosting the equivalent of a car dealership 'blowout' sale at Hsii's community and 48 others starting Friday."

"On Wednesday, the company sent Hsii an e-mail promising a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, window blinds and a 42-inch flat-screen TV 'at no additional cost' if he went ahead with his purchase. Hsii is looking for a cash discount instead."

"'My goal,' Hsii said, 'is to get the lowest price possible.'"

"'Buyers are hearing more and more about foreclosures and declining values, and frankly they are terrified even with these 'great values' being offered and are afraid to be purchasing when prices may still go down,' said Steve Johnson, regional analyst for MetroStudy."

"Appraiser Mathis said that in parts of the Inland Empire it could take as long as three years to sell off all the homes currently on the market, a glut that is likely to further erode prices."

"'Outlying markets have been showing significant weakness for over one year now, and this direction is now clearly being followed by the remaining Inland Empire markets,' he said. 'Equally ominous is the fact that most recent analysis suggests that the decline is accelerating.'"

The Voice of San Diego. "Fewer homes sold last month in San Diego County than in any August in 15 years, DataQuick reported. The 3,104 homes sold marked a 19.4 percent drop in sales volume from August 2006, and a 48 percent drop from the nearly 6,000 homes sold in August 2005."

"Many of the deals that closed in August, and that show up in data now, began in July or early August, before the drastic tightening in the mortgage market."

"RealtyTrac reported 2,699 new foreclosure filings in July, a 139 percent increase over July 2006 and a 907 percent increase over July 2005."

"'It's like somebody turned off the spigot all of a sudden,' said mortgage broker Mark Goldman. I get two to three calls a week from people who are upside-down in their houses, getting behind in their payments.'"

"'There's no places for them to go for a loan; they don't have equity,' he said. 'There's a world of hurt out there for these people.'"

"Sharyn Crown, a Coronado-based real estate broker, said her 30 years in the real estate business have taken her through several downturns and booms, but there's something different about this one."

"'The market is just different because people are so nervous,' she said. 'The lenders are running scared and the buyers are running scared. When you have a company like Countrywide (Financial Corp., a mortgage lender) laying off thousands of people, people get nervous.'"

"'The South Bay is really suffering -- it's terrible,' she said. 'And in the East County, sometimes a price reduction doesn't even get the house sold. It's hard for a lot of people to get realistic when things happen like this.'"

"'Yeah, a lot of people have been squeezed out with requirements for higher credit, full documentation (of income), reserves -- the stuff people should have always had,' Goldman said. 'The dumb money has left the market.'"