The Record Searchlight reports from California. "Nearly 80 lots in Deer Creek Manor are to be auctioned Nov. 21 on the Shasta County Courthouse steps. While the spike in home foreclosures, they jumped 562 percent in Shasta County in the first three quarters of 2007 from a year ago, has been well documented, this is the first large-scale residential development facing a foreclosure since the late 1990s, said Mike Van Bockern, who conducts public foreclosure auctions in Shasta County."

"'The whole real estate game is about timing. They missed the market,' Tom Shuck of Real Estate 1 in Redding said Thursday. 'When it (housing market) shut down, it flat shut down.'"

"To date, one house has been built in Deer Creek Manor. The 2,100-square-foot home, which isn't facing foreclosure, was built by contractor Les Reese Jr., who also owns the lot, and is listed for $499,000."

"'I think it's a bad time for everybody,' Reese said. 'Other than that, I really don't have much to say.'"

The Mountain Enterprise. "Kathy Flick's job is to compile all the notices of default that are recorded with Kern County each month when people stop paying their mortgages. Flick predicts the rate of foreclosures in the Mountain Communities is apt to be far lower than that occurring in Bakersfield because there were not 'overnight subdivisions' being built here."

"'Its extremely bad right now,' Flick said. 'We are running 50 defaults per day. There are 500 defaults a week since last December. It just keeps going on and on and on. Most of it I truly believe were the loan products that asked for nothing down and now they have gigantic payments they have to come up with.'"

"Local realtors may disagree. 'Our rate may be far lower than Bakersfield, but it is much higher than any of the years I have been selling up here since 1991,' commented Gary Wilson of Mountain Properties. 'I guess you could say 'on aggregate' that their pain is more than ours, but we have lots of pain to go around.'"

"Wilson reports the impact that foreclosures, have on the market."

"'The bank wants to sell them as quickly as possible so they price them lower than similar homes. There is no emotion in it from the bank and they have not even seen these homes. They are just files—assets to be sold in a timely manner Some asset manager may have a thousand of these to sell around the country, so they have a system,' he said."

"They have an appraisal, look at market trends, and price accordingly. They don't want to be overpriced in a declining market and follow the market down. They under price them right away. If they don't sell in 30 days, they lower the price again and again and continue to do so until the property changes hands. That's the system,' Wilson said."

From KSBY. "To help people on the Central Coast avoid foreclosures, Peoples' Self Help Housing has teamed up with Mariner Mortgage to offer free seminars to struggling homeowners."

"'Some people were not educated enough to realize what an interest only or a 100 percent loan to value meant at the time. They were eager to get into a home,' explained Annette Montoya of Peoples' Self Help Housing."

"Loan officer David Wilson admits education levels were low in some cases, but he says many hands got us into the mess we are in now."

"'It's hard to pinpoint who the bad guy is, so to speak. A lot of the foreclosures, if you actually look into them, are investment properties,' he said."

The Orange County Register. "Mid-October housing stats from DataQuick show that just four of 83 ZIP codes in Orange County (Orange 92865, Tustin 92782, Newport Beach 92661 and Irvine 92612) had year-over-year gains in home purchases in the 22 business days ended Oct. 16."

"Overall, in the latest October count by DataQuick, sales are down 45.5% vs. a year ago. Pricing remains weak, too. The latest read on median selling prices, $572,000, is equal to pricing seen in early 2005."

The Press Enterprise. "New-home sales continued to plummet in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in September, and almost one of every three people-- and maybe more -- who initially agreed to buy a home in Riverside County ended up cancelling the transaction."

"New home sales fell 37.2 percent to 617 in Riverside County in September, down from 983 in the same month in 2006, according to a report."

"The jarring part of this report is...there were 617 net sales in Riverside County in September, but sellers thought they had 928 before the buyer backed out. Those numbers mean one in three sales is being cancelled."

"However, Borre Winckel, executive vice president of the Riverside County chapter of the Building Industry Association, said he thinks that figure is low, based on what he has observed."

"'The cancellation rate seems to be north of 60 percent,' Winckel said. 'It's the curse of the lack of consumer confidence.'"

"According to DataQuick Information Systems, the median price for all homes in Inland Southern California in September was about 11 percent lower than a year ago. Sales prices have been sliding month-to-month since April."

"'They go home and hear on KFI Radio that another community down the street will be knocking the price down,' Winckel said." "Usually builders put up between 200,000 and 220,000 homes a year in California, but next year only 80,000 are expected to be built, he said."

"'Everyone thinks 2008 will be a miserable year,' Winckel said."

The Daily Press. "Empty lots languishing in partially completed subdivisions have become a common sight in local cities as the Victor Valley feels the effects of the national housing market slump."

"During sample periods in 2006 and 2007 examined by the Daily Press, new building permits for single-family homes decreased by 53 to 83 percent in Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville."

"Jon Roberts, city manager for Victorville, said the city finally had enough time to begin reorganizing its permit process 30 days ago."

"'When the economy and development were going so strong, it was such a volume coming in that we couldn’t get it through the process quick enough,' he said."

The Daily Bulletin. "The High Desert and San Gorgonio Pass - two regions beyond the fringes of the Inland Empire - have much in common. The Joshua tree-filled cities of the Mojave Desert and the chaparral towns of the Pass region are both traversed by interstates and railroads used by commuters and freight haulers. Both areas have been hit by the current housing market slowdown."

"Beaumont, in the San Gorgonio Pass, is but one example of a town where the housing market has cooled off this year. Median home prices in the city dipped from $372,000 in August 2006 to $365,000 this August, according to DataQuick."

"David Dillon, economic development director for the city, said that housing trend might not be such a bad thing, since a slower pace of residential growth could allow for new residents to be absorbed into the local economy before the next housing boom."

"'It helps catch up the jobs and housing imbalance,' he said."