The Housing Bubble

The Union Tribune reports from California. “Job losses, rising gas prices and continuing weakness in the real estate market will plague San Diego County’s economy for months to come, according to a forecast released today by the Anderson Forecast of the University of California Los Angeles. ‘The continuing litany of bad news sure sounds like it could be a recession,’ wrote UCLA economist Ryan Ratcliff and Alan Gin, economist with the University of San Diego.”

“Home foreclosures will continue to be a drag on the real estate market for another 9 to 12 months. ‘It may very well be the middle of 2009 before we see a housing market that starts to look ‘normal,’ ‘ Ratcliff and Gin wrote.”

The North County Times. “San Diego County will lose 1,200 more jobs in April and May, the forecast said, after having posted a loss of 1,700 in March. But the economy will then stabilize, posting growth in jobs by the fourth quarter when compared to a year earlier, the report said.”

“A fundamental reason is that a downturn in several sectors, including aerospace, accompanied that era’s housing recession, said Alan Gin, an economics professor with the University of San Diego and a contributing author for the forecast.”

“‘That was a double whammy (in the early ’90s),’ he said. ‘So then the question now is, ‘Can a single whammy bring the economy into a recession?’ I don’t think it can.’”

“Discussing the future of residential real estate, writers of the forecast had no problem eating crow on their previous prediction. They noted that a year ago, the team forecast that home prices in San Diego County would remain relatively stable or fall only slightly.”

“Instead, countywide home prices tumbled almost 17 percent throughout the year, according to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a closely watched price indicator.”

“The forecast’s writers acknowledged underestimating the foreclosure crisis a year ago. Looking forward, they expect foreclosures to continue to ‘wreak havoc’ on home prices for the next nine to 12 months.”

Fox 6 San Diego. “Weakness in real estate will lead to small job losses, a modest increase in unemployment and weak growth in incomes and local output over the next two years, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast, which was released by UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.”

“‘But in the context of our tug of war metaphor, this is mud on the ankles, rather than a full-blown faceplant in the muck,’ the report says.”

The Signal. “A rocky state and national economy means Santa Clarita is not likely see funding allocated for any new big projects over the next year, city officials said this week.”

“City Manager Ken Pulskamp said sales tax typically goes up about 4 percent per year and is the largest form of revenue for the city. This next budget year, however, will likely see no growth in that area for the first time, he said.”

“‘That’s not good, but it’s better than a lot of other places,’ said city Treasurer Darren Hernandez. ‘For many other communities, … it’s simply devastating.’”

“Councilwoman Marsha McLean, who is a member of the League of California cities, said Santa Clarita is in good shape in these tough economic times, especially when compared to other cities throughout the state. ‘There are an awful lot cities having a really tough time and are on the verge of bankruptcy,’ she said.”

From Bloomberg. “As Vallejo, California’s home prices plunged, the once-humming Navy town on the north edge of the San Francisco Bay seemed like a good place to settle down, said Tim Medrow, a manager at a store that sells floor and bathroom tiles.”

“Then came the city council meeting Tuesday night, when elected leaders voted to turn Vallejo into the largest California city to declare bankruptcy. ‘It’s crippling the city,’ said Medrow. ‘It’s already feast or famine. And it’s only going to get worse now.’”

“Vallejo residents worry that a filing will hurt a city that struggled even in the best of times, when median home prices more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, according to the city manager’s report. In interviews, they said they were concerned it could scare away new residents, hurt city services, and push Vallejo deeper into the hole.”

“‘What business is going to want to come to a city with no money?’ said Josef Klaus, the owner of a vacuum and janitorial supply shop.”

“The area has since been one of the hardest hit in Northern California by the housing market slump. Home prices in Solano County, which includes Vallejo, dropped 26 percent in March from the year before, according to DataQuick. That helped fuel a projected sales tax drop of 7 percent to $12.4 million, according to city figures, while the taxes collected when property changes hands are expected to fall by more than $1.6 million.”

“Ivonne Johnson moved to Vallejo in October from San Francisco, looking to get away from crime and high-priced real estate. She stepped back from buying a home after she saw $80,000 cut from the asking price of one she was looking at. After this week’s news, she’s set her sights elsewhere.”

“‘If city services are going to lose funding, and that means there might be less police officers who can respond, we’re afraid it might turn into the kind of place we just left,’ she said.”

The Alameda Sun. “With home prices slumping and recession fears strong despite new federal economic figures, developers are reworking plans for Alameda Landing, the nearly 100-acre redevelopment site sandwiched between the Posey Tube, Alameda Point and Bayport, a subdivision built by the same firm.”

“‘Right now, we’re working on modifying the site plan,’ said Jessica Crow, a spokesperson for the parent company of developer Catellus.”

“Community watchdogs began growling about delays after the proposed anchor tenant, Berkeley-based energy bar-maker Clif Bar & Co., announced it was withdrawing from the project and keeping its 220 employees in Berkeley, at least for now.”

“‘We signed a letter of intent’ with the developer, said Bruce Lymburn, general counsel for Clif Bar. ‘It allowed Catellus to back out, and it allowed us to back out.’”

“Under current plans, Catellus would deliver 300 homes, 300,000 square feet of shopping and 400,000 square feet of office space along the Estuary, but that mix could change. Lymburn said, ‘For this project to work, it needs all three legs of the stool,’ he added, referring to housing, shopping and office space.”

“Lymburn said that despite the delays, Clif Bar has not ruled out Alameda Landing. ‘We have not completely closed the door. I think things are really up in the air for them, too. I would hate to be developing a 100-arce parcel right now.’”

The Bakersfield Californian. “A $100 million loan that defaulted was among seven delinquencies recorded Tuesday against developers with projects in Kern, documents at the Kern County Recorder’s office show. The largest involved a residential project in Rosamond by Stockton developer Patrick H. Matthews.”

“Defaults and foreclosures among developers have become more common since the real estate market got rough, but Tuesday’s filings stand out because of their quantity and because the Rosamond project has apparently chocked up the second-highest local delinquency in the current downturn.”

“The money was borrowed against a 40-acre, 176-lot project. Lender Bank of America in July 2007 upped to $100 million a revolving loan agreement originally made in 2005. As of April 29, Rosamond Reflections owed a past due amount of more than $71 million, Tuesday’s notice indicated.”

“Also Tuesday, six default notices totaling about $35 million were recorded against limited liability companies of another Stockton developer, Kent Hoggan. In March, two of Hoggan’s projects in Wasco had loans foreclosed on.”

The San Francisco Chronicle. “Authorities say the brazen slaying of a San Ramon real estate investor was rooted in an ill-conceived mortgage scam that employed an 18-year-old as a would-be buyer for a home on a bleak dead-end street in North Richmond.”

“Kashmir Billon was killed April 27 after the plot, which echoes the sleazy side of the nation’s mortgage crisis, fell apart, authorities told The Chronicle.”

“At the heart of the case is a recently built stucco home in North Richmond, a property owned by Reginald Robinson. Robinson is the El Sobrante man charged with the slaying of his business partner, Billon, who had financed the purchase and renovation of the property, authorities said.”

“Contra Costa County prosecutor Ken McCormick said two men who were brought to court Wednesday, Miguel Angel Alvarado and Javier Gomez, were hired to invent a fake person named ‘Francisco’ who would buy the two-story, tan-colored house for an inflated price of $495,000.”

“The plan, prosecutors said, was to walk away from the loan and defraud lender JPMorgan Chase of a $417,000 loan amount.”

“Despite the alleged conspiracy, escrow on the home - which was set to close on April 28, the day after Billon’s killing - was canceled earlier, meaning that JPMorgan Chase was not going to pay, McCormick said. ‘We believe this was an illegal flipping operation,’ McCormick said. ‘The person who gets cheated is the bank. They have nobody to go after because the purchaser was a fictitious individual.’”

“Alvarado’s attorney, James Mootz, said his client had no criminal record and called the charges ‘almost comical.’”

“‘He’s not a licensed Realtor. He doesn’t have any formal education,’ Mootz said. ‘And here he’s involved with all of these gentlemen who are not only licensed Realtors but developers. All of a sudden he’s being called a recruiter and a mastermind? It’s ridiculous.’”

“Contra Costa County property records show that a corporation set up by Robinson called RR Finance bought a 5,000-square-foot property at 1735 Seventh St. for $210,000 in August 2006. Robinson subdivided and built a pair of two-story houses. Billon paid for the construction, McCormick said. The recent fraudulent sale, he said, was for just one of the two new homes.”

“Neighbor Jose Montano said workers finished the house about six weeks ago. This week, it had a lock box on its door but no ‘For Sale’ sign on its small, unmowed lawn. Told that it sold for more than $400,000, Montano was surprised it was so high.”

“‘I know it’s new,’ he said, ‘but the area is bad.’”

“Robinson was having financial difficulties, records show. The California Franchise Tax Board sent him a series of liens demanding thousands of dollars in back taxes and penalties, and last month a bank financing his home in El Sobrante started the foreclosure process, claiming it had not been paid.”

The Rocky Mountain News reports from Colorado. “The median price of a single- family home closed in April slid by 10.2 percent from a year earlier in the Denver area, according to reports released Wednesday. The average price of a single- family home dropped to $267,259, a 17.13 percent plunge from $322,510 in April 2007. There were 26,171 unsold homes on the market, 2.5 percent more than the 25,516 homes for sale in April 2007. That equates to slightly more than a seven-month supply of unsold homes, according to broker Jack O’Connor.”

“Independent broker Gary Bauer blamed the record foreclosures in the metro area for dragging down the overall market. ‘I would still say it is a buyer’s market,’ Bauer said.”

“The foreclosure rate in Denver rose to 5.9 percent in 2007 from 0.8 percent in 2000, a 637.5 percent increase, according to a study. The 81-page report by the Denver Office of Economic Development also found that on average, 6.6 percent of loans originated annually in Denver become delinquent and enter the foreclosure process within five years.”

“The report also found that the age of loans going into foreclosure has declined to 2.5 years in 2005 from 7.5 years in 1994.”

The Denver Post from Colorado. “In an attempt to create bidding wars, banks are giving real-estate agents permission to list foreclosed homes at less than market value.”

“‘The mentality of my clients is everybody’s shopping for a deal,’ said Jon Terry, broker in Golden. ‘There’s a perception that if they buy a bank-owned property or a short sale, they’re going to get a deal.’”

“‘The biggest fear is when people can’t afford to buy homes, period, so they pull out of the marketplace and it drives all the under-contract numbers and sold prices down,’ said Mike Cox, a broker who compiles a monthly report based on statistics from the MLS.”

From KTAR.com in Arizona. “In just eight years, the city of Maricopa, Ariz., sprang from the desert almost spontaneously. Maricopa was built so quickly that it does not have a hospital or a movie theater. The only restaurants are chains such as Taco Bell and Panda Express.”

“Still, this was the place where young people and first-timers could live the dream of owning a home. But, today, with many front yards overgrown by weeds, decorated with ‘Short Sale’ and ‘Bank Owned’ real estate signs, Maricopa has been described by some real estate analysts as the poster child for excess in the housing market.”

“Back in 2005, ‘If I listed a home, I would have two or three offers on it within the same day,’ real estate broker Susan Abdallah said.”

“But on a recent day she showed a home, which originally sold for $225,000, that had been re-possessed by the bank. After reducing the price to $105,000, she still had no offers and was preparing to put the house up for auction. Abdallah has 60 bank-owned properties to sell.”

“As many as one in 10 houses in Maricopa are for sale, even while new houses continue to be built. Homeowners, banks and builders all are competing to sell at ever-lower prices.”

“‘I think that was part of the mistake that the builders made, was that they allowed investors to come in and buy,’ Abdullah said. ‘Allowed them to buy tracts of homes, you know, five, six, 10 houses, and they bought them on speculation.’”

“Mayor Kelly Anderson said, ‘You had builders and other development people that could not get permits fast enough. They wanted a permit turned around in 12 hours, because they couldn’t sell the home fast enough. They had people lined up 100 deep on a Sunday morning for a lottery ticket.’”

“By early 2004, the median re-sale price of a house was about $150,000. Two years later it was nearly $260,000. Then the mortgage crisis hit, and by the end of 2007 that re-sale price had plummeted to just more than $197,000, and brand new houses were even less — $180,000.”

“Jay Butler, who teaches real estate at Arizona State University, said of the builders, ‘They really weren’t building homes. They were building mortgages that they could put into mortgage-backed securities in order to sell them to investors in China and France.’”

“Stuck in the middle are families like Brad and Sarah Milnes and their infant daughter Hannah. They recently bought a new house in Phoenix, but they have been unable to sell their home in Maricopa. And Brad, who used to sell houses here in the days when they sold themselves, has been laid off for lack of business.”

“‘We don’t want to give this house back for a hundred thousand less than we paid for it,’ Milnes said, but plenty of people have done just that. He has seen former customers and neighbors just disappear.”

The Tucson Citizen from Arizona. “Foreclosures in Tucson are increasing dramatically. In 2007 there were 4,471 foreclosure filings in Pima County, according to RealtyTrac. An analysis of RealtyTrac data shows filings increased from 322 in the fourth quarter of 2006 to nearly 1,700 in the last quarter of 2007, an increase of nearly 430 percent. The majority of the 2007 filings came during the second half of the year.”

“Real estate experts point out that the decline in the housing market means prices are correcting from the overinflated values from the housing boom a few years ago. The median home price dropped from $280,000 in January 2006 to $244,000 in late April of this year.”

“Federal Reserve Bank data show that nearly 70 percent of the subprime loans issued in Pima County are adjustable rate mortgages. Nearly half of the borrowers will see their interest rates reset in the next 12 months.”

“According to the data, nearly 60 percent of the subprime loans were taken out by borrowers who were capitalizing on their home’s equity and walking away with cash in their pocket. That cash is now gone, and for many, so is their house.”

“Richard Elías, chairman of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, says foreclosures will have a large impact on the local economy, which is structured around new homes and population growth.”

“‘There’s not really manufacturing in this community. There’s not really other kinds of industry jobs that are out there for people,’ he said. ‘Instead, growth is what funnels our economy in large part, so when growth gets damaged by a lack of investment in housing or something like the foreclosure crisis that we’re facing, our economy is hurting.’”

“‘Neighborhood issues become very tough when there is a number of vacant and abandoned homes in a community,’ Elías said. ‘There are so many deleterious effects to having abandoned homes in neighborhoods, particularly in the toughest parts of town.’”

The Arizona Republic. “Thirty-five new townhouses near the University of Phoenix Stadium will be auctioned off next month as builders continue to use auctions to figure out what buyers are willing to pay. Trammell Crow Residential of Scottsdale has scheduled an auction June 7 to sell the last condos in the Quarter development in Glendale.”

“When the company began selling the condos in 2006, all 171 units sold out within eight months. But 35 sales fell through for various reasons, such as inability to get financing or buyers backing out, said Bruce Hart, senior managing director of Trammell Crow Residential.”

“‘We’re not waiting for a floor in the market. This is a process to determine the market value. We’re letting the market set the value,’ Hart said. ‘We hope we’re near the bottom and we hope it will turn around. We think the bottom has yet to come for most townhouses and condos.’”

“The 32 two-bedroom units start at $195,000 and range from about 1,439 to 1,716 square feet. Prices for the three three-bedroom units will start at $265,000. Previous asking prices have been up to $485,321 for two-bedroom units and $552,520 for the three-bedroom units.”

“Jon Gollinger, a principal with the company that will conduct the auction, said prices are being set very low because buyers are afraid of paying too much. ‘Really it (auction) is born out of this stalemate or paralysis that’s occurred in the marketplace in general,’ he said.”

The Review Journal from Nevada. “For the first time since September 2005, sales of single-family homes in Las Vegas rose from the same month of the previous year, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Tuesday.”

“Home sales jumped to 1,794 in April, up nearly 30 percent from April 2007 and the fourth consecutive monthly increase. The inventory of homes available for sale on the MLS has stabilized at 22,942, a 3.1 percent increase from a year ago.”

“The median price of a single-family home continued to decline in April, dropping 3 percent from March to $235,875, according to GLVAR statistics. The price is down 22.7 percent from a year ago.”

“As in past months, Patty Kelley, president of the local Realtors association, attributes the slight decline to the number of short sales and foreclosures selling for prices below market value. Properties owned by banks and other lenders still account for more than half of all homes sold each month, she said.”

“Kelley said homes are coming onto the market priced much lower than in the past. She’s listing a home in Queensridge for around $300,000 that sold for $525,000 in 2005.”

“The Jack Nicklaus-signature golf course at Coyote Springs is open for public play, but the first model homes have been pushed back to September 2009, an executive for the master-planned community’s primary home builder said.”

“Residential building has been delayed 18 months and home prices have yet to be determined, said Klif Andrews, division president of Pardee Homes.”

“‘It’s partly the market — we’re not in a rush to get in the market today — and it’s partly slow construction activity,’ he said. ‘It was difficult to complete some of the things we had to complete.’”

“‘You’ve got to spend $30 million on wastewater treatment before you can hook up one toilet. That’s why houses will always appreciate because it’s difficult and expensive to build in outlying areas,’ he said.”

“The 40,000-acre Coyote Springs development is about 60 miles north of Las Vegas, straddling Clark and Lincoln counties on U.S. Highway 93. It’s planned for 159,000 homes on 20,000 acres with 12,000 acres set aside for a nature preserve, parks and trails.”

“Pardee intends to sell homes at a ‘great value,’ but not 40 percent less than Las Vegas prices, Andrews said. ‘Coyote Springs is more about the community, not how cheap we can sell houses,’ he said.”

“Reno attorney and political lobbyist Harvey Whittemore purchased the Coyote Springs land for $15 million in 1996. Because his cost basis is so small on the land, Whittemore could sit on the project for a while without any serious repercussions, housing analyst Dennis Smith said.”

“‘He can just use the golf course as a way to advertise the community, waiting until demand improves,’ Smith said.”

The Las Vegas Sun from Nevada. “The economy, as you know, is off a couple of ticks. First-quarter room occupancy is down 1 percentage point, Boyd Gaming’s Las Vegas revenue is down 5 percent or 6 percent, MGM Mirage’s profit is down a whopping 30 percent, and Stacy Taylor’s income is down 40 percent.”

“Taylor might be considered a barometer of the Las Vegas economy, as part of the 10 percent of the Las Vegas labor force that earns tip income. She’s a server at a tony Strip steakhouse that relies on convention goers. She’s seen her tips, which account for all of her take-home pay, drop precipitously because even though most people are tipping the same percentages, they’re not spending as much on food and booze.”

“Taylor had counted on putting most of her tips in the bank to tide her and her family’s three children over through the lean summer months. ‘I have nothing to put away this year,’ Taylor says. ‘Picking up a second job might not be a bad idea, but I don’t know how I’ll manage to do it with three kids out of school for the summer.’”

“Versions of Taylor’s story are heard up and down the Strip and around town. At the Mirage, blackjack dealer Al Maurice says management is trying to spread the pain of fewer weekday gamblers by asking dealers to take extra days off — and sometimes forcing the issue.”

“At the current pace, a dealer might make $3,500 less this year than last. So far he’s made $600 less. It’s not good, but he doesn’t think it compares with the drop the casino is seeing. So he understands.”

“Farther up the boulevard at the Stratosphere, valet Mark Cohen is seeing fewer cars during the week — he blames gas prices — and says tips are down a bit, to boot. He points out that there are more Europeans in town, what with the strength of the euro against the dollar.”

“And Europeans don’t tip? ‘Well, you know,’ Cohen says, ‘I don’t want to say anything, you know, bad.’”

“Stop by Zodie’s on Tropicana Road and Tommy Wise says the traffic is about the same and, while the regulars are being good, strangers are tipping about 30 percent less. ‘My girlfriend is a waitress and she says business is off 30 percent there, too. She says it’s the worst it’s ever been and she’s been here 12 years.’”

“Julianna Nagy, who works at Kiss’s Salon & Spa on Tropicana Avenue, and Liz Guinan, who works at Gianna Christine Salon, Spa & Wellness in the District at Green Valley Ranch, say business is down 30 percent. Their analysis: Customers are putting off haircuts an extra couple of weeks and women are coloring their hair at home.”

“‘The decent people, the average people, the people who make a good living and do right, they’re still coming,’ Nagy says. ‘The housing (problem), that is what is really hurting us. The people who were buying big houses with lots of money, they don’t come.’”

The Lockport Journal reports from New York. “Lockport City Court is laying down the law on responsible home ownership. Judge Thomas M. DiMillo sentenced a former homeowner to fines and community service Tuesday for his part in the deterioration of a property that he lost to foreclosure. DiMillo also warned the former occupant of another vacated home that she, too, faces consequences for walking away from title-holder’s responsibility.”

“‘At some point three years ago you had an obligation … that you couldn’t afford to do anything about, so you abandoned it,’ said DiMillo. ‘(That’s) a crime in itself.’”

“‘Word has to get out that you can’t just abandon property,’ said Prosecutor Matthew Brooks. ‘You have to do something to get out from under it, not just stick your head in the sand.’”

“Judith Northcliffe, owner of 162 Monroe St., asked the court’s help to get out from beneath the burden of owning a house she bought sight unseen 14 years ago and has regretted ever since. She told the court that her only income is $856 a month from Social Security — and she’s just taken a job, ironically at a collection agency, because she needs the money so badly.”

“While Northcliffe has offered to simply turn over the property to the city, Brooks said that’s not permissible. In formal seizure process, any party with a claim to the title, like the bank, has to relinquish the claim in court first, so that it isn’t transferred to the city.”

The Telegraph from New Hampshire. “The latest data from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors indicates that Hillsborough County homes and condos that were sold in the first quarter of this year had been on the market an average of four months – the longest period since the group started keeping track a decade ago.”

“Sales and prices were dismal, too. A total of 452 properties sold in January, February and March, by far the smallest first-quarter figure in the last decade. The median sale price, measuring the point at which half of sales cost less and half of sales cost more, fell to 2004 levels.”

“This means that anybody who bought a house in southern New Hampshire during the last three years has probably seen its value go down, a fact reflected in rising foreclosure rates, which doubled in Hillsborough County last year.”

“If there really is a silver lining in every cloud, first-time buyers are playing the only upbeat note in the huge black thunderhead that is New Hampshire’s housing market.”

“‘The best buyers are those who don’t own any real estate, have good credit, have cash for the down payment – they are the ones who can make deals,’ said Yve Hines, a real-estate agent in Nashua.”

“Jim Lyons, president of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors, added that even perennially optimistic real estate agents don’t expect a return to a boom era like the first half of this decade, when median house prices in Hillsborough County increased an average of more than 12 percent every year.”

“‘I don’t believe it will come back wildly,’ Lyons said. ‘Some of what you’re seeing now is reflective of such a fast run-up (in prices). The market is sort of catching up with itself.’”

“The obvious comparison is to the swooning housing market in the early 1990s, when home sales and prices, and particularly condominium prices, were savaged. The big difference today is the greater reliance on debt from new types of mortgages and a greater ease in borrowing against soaring home values.”

“‘One difference between the ’90s and now is that more people have tapped into their equity,’ Lyons said. ‘They were essentially using their home as a credit card.’”

The Daily Democrat from New Hampshire. “Signs of greater housing market strain have begun to bubble up in the Granite State. Percolating just below the subprime crisis is growing concern about prime — or standard — loans, which have often been touted as stable, secure guards against skyrocketing foreclosures.”

“Data released recently shows more than 18,000 New Hampshire mortgages were listed as delinquent as of the end of March, according to the New Hampshire Housing and Finance Authority.”

“That figure — coupled with a doubling of foreclosures during the first quarter of this year over the same time last year — is by itself cause for concern, say experts, but more worrying is that nearly 11,000 of those delinquent mortgages are prime loans.”

“‘It is spreading. It is not just a case of problems in the subprime,’ said Dan Smith, director of housing research for the NHHFA. ‘We’ve seen this increasing since 2007.’”

“The U.S. Mortgage Bankers Association reported 250,340 prime loans across the state, with 10,710 — 4.2 percent — being delinquent and 730 — less than 1 percent statewide — already in foreclosure. Of the 32,650 subprime loans reported statewide, 6,390 — 19.5 percent — were delinquent and 1,150 — roughly 7 percent — were already foreclosed.”

“‘You could make the case that housing is more affordable at this point, but I don’t think that’s particularly germane,’ Smith said. ‘That can only work if incomes go up while housing goes down, and I don’t think we’re there yet. People are extremely uncomfortable with their situations.’”

The Boston Herald from Massachusetts. “The foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts has gone from bad to worse, with the number of homes seized by their lenders soaring in some of the state’s wealthiest towns, a new report finds.”

“Some of the state’s toniest locales, including Nantucket, Edgartown and Weston, have seen their foreclosure rates double over the past year, ForeclosuresMass.com finds.”

“The increases outstrip the average for the state as a whole, with Massachusetts seeing a 37 percent jump in the number of foreclosure notices filed by banks and other lenders in the first quarter compard with the same period in 2007.”

“‘The foreclosure crisis really has no boundaries in Massachusetts,’ said Jeremy Shapiro, president of ForeclosuresMass.com. ‘Communities rich and poor, urban and suburban and rural are all being impacted.’”

“Leading the foreclosure pack, three of the four towns with triple-digit increases are in the top tier of the real estate market. Belmont, Oak Bluffs and Nahant have seen the number of distressed properties increase by 200 percent, 217 percent and 240 percent, respectively.”

“The downturn in the market and falling home prices have made it difficult for people to escape, even in wealthy communities, if there is a job loss or other setback, said Karl Case, a Wellesley College professor and real estate market expert. In a down market, the option of selling the house is no longer there.”

“‘House prices are really the culprit,’ Case said.”

The Providence Journal from Rhode Island. “Rhode Island house prices during January, February and March fell 9.4 percent, the largest first-quarter decline in more than 20 years, according to a report released today by The Warren Group.”

“Meanwhile, sales of single-family houses during January, February and March plunged 20.4 percent from a year earlier — the steepest first-quarter decline since 1998.”

“Rhode Island’s real-estate slump is shaping up to be ‘more dramatic’ than during the early 1990s, when [monthly] ‘double-digit drops in price weren’t the norm,’ The Warren Group’s CEO, Timothy Warren Jr., said in a statement. ‘They are now, and we’re not sure when that will end.’”

“Condo sales in March plunged nearly 51 percent. For January, February and March, condo sales were down 37 percent, compared with 500 a year earlier. Sales of both condos and single-family houses have fallen by double-digits every month since August, the report said.”

The Hartford Courant from Connecticut. “Connecticut’s housing recession deepened in March, as sales plummeted and the median sales price of a single-family house slid for the fourth month in a row and by the most since the mid-1990s.”

“The median sales price fell by 7 percent in March, to $268,250 from $288,500 for the same month a year ago, according to the monthly report from The Warren Group.”

“That’s the biggest monthly price drop since April, 1995 when prices declined by nearly 8 percent. And the decline is starting to look sustained. For the first three months of the year, the median price has fallen 5.8 percent to $266,000 from $282,500 for the same period a year ago.”

“Sales of single-family houses across the state plunged by nearly 30 percent in March, compared with the same month in 2007.”

“Warren said Connecticut appeared last year to avoid the housing slump gripping other states in New England. ‘But this year, it’s a different story,’ Warren said. ‘The state is quickly catching up with the correction affecting Massachusetts and Rhode Island.’”

The Connecticut Post. “‘This is the biggest price drop in Connecticut in 13 years, and Fairfield County is leading the way,’ Warren said of the single-family numbers.”

“In Fairfield County, sales in March 2008 were down 37.33 percent from March 2007, to 413, and median prices fell 10.09 percent to $508,000. The year-to-date figures for both measures were also down, by 31.87 percent for sales and 8.51 percent for prices, to $507,750.”

From The Day in Connecticut. “Local foreclosure filings during this year’s first quarter jumped more than 50 percent, according to statistics released Tuesday, and experts say housing prices will likely drop as a result.”

“Numbers from The Warren Group show that first-stage foreclosure filings in New London County were up 54.2 percent during the January-through-March period compared with the same period in 2007.”

“A total of 407 foreclosure filings were started in the past quarter, compared with 264 last year. That’s nearly double the number of foreclosures in the same period of 2006.”

“‘The victims of foreclosure, for the most part, are not able to re-enter the housing market right away, so there are thousands fewer people in the market for a new home,’ Warren said in a statement.’It will take some time before the number of foreclosures starts to stabilize, and home sales and prices pick up.’”

“Vincent Valvo, group publisher at The Warren Group, said it generally takes anywhere from three to six months for foreclosures to be completed once the initial filing is made. He added that an increase in foreclosures of more than 50 percent would translate into lower prices over the short term.”

“‘It really puts an incredible strain on the market,’ he said.’It cannot bode well for property sellers. It’s likely that the value (of homes) is going to decline (further), and much faster than so far.’”

“Massachusetts prices dropped 10 percent in March compared to a year ago, while Rhode Island’s decline for the month stood at 10.3 percent. Both states are seeing reductions in real-estate prices not experienced since the late 1980s.”

“In fact, Valvo said, the situation is so bad in Massachusetts that for every house sold in the state, another is going into foreclosure.”

“‘It’s an absolutely terrifying real estate situation in Massachusetts; it’s a bad dream in Connecticut,’ he said.”

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