The Housing Bubble

USA Today reports from California. “Ramona Garcia of Corona, Calif., says she did everything she could to ease the effects of her foreclosure on her young children. Garcia and her husband, Dominic, both real estate agents, saw their business crash as the local housing market toppled. The family struggled to pay their mortgage and moved to a rental after losing their home to foreclosure in November.”

“In March, Ramona began selling jewelry as a sales rep for a company that she says gave her flexible hours so she could lend her girls some sense of security during a wrenching time for the family. Dominic found a job as a site-acquisition rep for cellphone companies.”

“The new job ‘lifted my spirits and gave me a sense of contributing again,’ Ramona says. ‘I was really focused on keeping the transition as smooth as possible for the children. We didn’t even tell them we were moving until we were really close. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy going from a big home with a pool to a smaller home.’”

From CNN Living. “Tabloid magazines like to reassure us that celebrities are just like us. These days, that can also hold true when it comes to the plummeting real estate market.”

“Property values can be a matter of perspective, says Ed Kaminsky, a Manhattan Beach, California-based real estate agent who helps professional athletes relocate.”

“‘You’ve got the new guys with the big contracts that are excited about the $8 million check they just got and they want to spend some, and I’d say rightfully so. Sometimes it’s not a smart investment and sometimes it is,’ he said. ‘But if you make $8 million a year and you blow $5 million on a house and you sell it for $3 million a few years later, is it really wrong?’”

From AFP News. “Every night at dusk in this wealthy California coastal town, Barbara Harvey puts down food for her golden retrievers. Not long afterwards, the 66-year-old mother-of-three clambers into the back of her white Honda CR-V, pulls up a blanket, and beds down for the night, snuggling next to her beloved dogs for comfort.”

“When Harvey’s job as a 37,000-dollar-a-year notary evaporated in the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, she found herself penniless and destitute in a town where the average price of a home is one million dollars. Harvey’s nightly ‘home’ now is the quiet carpark of the historic Santa Barbara Mission.”

“New Beginnings has received a flood of donations from all over the United States as a result of the publicity surrounding Harvey’s case, evidence perhaps that her story has struck a chord in difficult times, says executive director Gary Linker.”

“‘She could be anybody in this country who is essentially one paycheck away from losing their home,’ Linker said.”

“Guy Trevor, a 53-year-old British-born interior designer who lost his home and his job in the mortgage crisis, says he spent three months living in a pick-up truck before entering the parking scheme.”

“‘The real difference is you’re not sneaking around any more,’ Trevor said. ‘You feel safe. It’s nice to feel safe.’”

The Tribune. “About a week after investors and developers forced Paso Robles lender Estate Financial Inc. into an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, the firm’s leaders resigned after voluntarily putting its separate mortgage fund into bankruptcy protection.”

“The mortgage fund-which pooled investor money to make high-interest loans to real estate developers-represents an estimated $150 million of assets in Estate Financial’s books. However, the vast majority of those assets are in nonperforming loans, those that are in or close to default.”

“‘Whatever anybody says, this is mostly about losses caused by a lousy real estate market,’ said Bill Beall, a Santa Barbara attorney and adviser to the firm. ‘It’s really about a lot of borrowers who don’t make payments because the real estate market is in trouble.’”

The Press Enterprise. “Home sales are rebounding far more quickly in California than nationally, driven by a more dramatic decline in home prices, an economist for the California Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

“Since October, California home sales have been fueled by price declines as much as five times greater than the rest of the nation, Robert Kleinhenz said. In May, the median price of an existing home in Riverside and San Bernardino counties was $257,660, down almost 38 percent from the June 2007 peak of $417,160.”

“Even if home sales continue to rise in California, ‘nobody thinks it is a real recovery until prices stabilize or start to go up,’ he said.”

“Lake Elsinore will explore using a water truck to nourish the browned front lawns of repossessed and abandoned homes as the city continues efforts to eradicate blight caused by the foreclosure crisis. City staff has registered 58 of the more than 1,000 foreclosed properties in the city limits since May, when the ordinance went into effect.”

“To date the city has identified owners of 415 of the city’s 1,100 foreclosed properties and registered 58 homes, issued 40 notices of violations and 15 citations. The biggest obstacle, City Code Enforcement Manager Robin Chipman said, is identifying the property owners, as a home may change hands several times during the foreclosure process.”

“Chipman said the city’s initial goal is to register at least half of the foreclosed properties. Murrieta, according to the report, has identified 500 properties and registered 250 of them.”

“‘I’m not sure that is a realistic goal,’ Chipman said.”

The Daily Bulletin. “Remember when you had to prove your income to get a home mortgage? It was standard practice before the subprime housing debacle made a mess of the real estate market nationwide. Now those policies are about to become federal law.”

“Caroline Urso, a Countrywide Financial loan officer based in Redlands, said the new rules are a good thing.”

“‘Instead of getting borrowers calling you and screaming at you because you won’t qualify them, now they’ll understand it’s the law,’ she said. ‘Before, they’d go across town to someone who would falsify W2s and pay stubs.’”

The Sacramento Bee. “Fresh fears that the loan market may tighten more haven’t yet affected a region where home sales have climbed rapidly in recent weeks. That’s because home loan rules have already tightened so much during the past year.”

“‘I’ve been doing this for 36 years. This is the most difficult time I’ve ever experienced with underwriting,’ said Michael McGee, president of Winchester McGee Financial in Rancho Cordova. ‘I would venture to say in the next two or three years you will see the lowest foreclosure rate this country has ever seen because you just have to be solid gold to get a loan.’”

“The uncertainty involving market leaders created the latest set of jitters for real estate markets - including Sacramento’s - that can best be described as fragile. Though year-over-year sales have risen for the first time in 36 months in the area, still more restrictions and fewer loans have the potential to curb the supply of buyers and stall a recovery, brokers said.”

“McGee said his firm is already rejecting one in three loan applicants under the current lending rules.”

“Brokers said the recent boost in home sales locally is largely due to borrowers with good credit and the ability to put money down. But they said they’re hearing that mortgage insurers may start requiring 10 percent down payments instead of 5 percent in so-called ‘declining markets’ like Sacramento.”

“Mortgage consultant Beth Gewerth in Sacramento said the economic system will somehow keep the loans coming. ‘As we all know, housing drives the economy,’ she said. ‘They can’t get too exotic. But they have to keep things going so people can purchase homes and keep it going.’”

The San Francisco Chronicle. “In California, every property going through foreclosure is auctioned on county courthouse steps, generally for the amount owed on the mortgage, plus fees. Those auctions are all cash, don’t guarantee title and don’t give a chance to inspect.”

“A whopping 97.3 percent of properties at those auctions revert to the lender, according to Sean O’Toole, founder of ForeclosureRadar.”

“‘It takes a certain breed of borrower to buy a foreclosure,’ said Joe Metz, a Realtor in Fremont. ‘I hold a lot of REOs open on weekends. I can tell if a buyer is new to the whole thing; they just get really upset with the condition of the house.’”

“That’s because banks don’t do more than a very basic clean-out of foreclosed properties. They don’t paint. They don’t replace carpets. They don’t remodel.”

“Banks usually determine an asking price after hiring several real estate agents to give opinions about a property’s value. It’s important to remember that banks, and the people who work for them, are skilled at analyzing prices and market conditions.”

“‘Banks are getting very aggressive on pricing,’ said Realtor Glen Bell. ‘We’re seeing them priced at 10 percent to 15 percent less than non-REO properties. Reducing prices to attractive levels has become their strategy … to unload assets.’”

“‘Our experience is the bank has a number (the asking price); they will hold that for a while,’ Metz said. ‘”If they don’t get that number for three or four weeks, they will lower the price a little more. Banks are very smart about how they do this. They move them very quickly and for about as much as anybody could get.’”

The Bakersfield Californian. “A 10th housing development has defaulted in Wasco, the city of 24,300 - including a state prison population of nearly 6,000 - that touts itself as the ‘rose capital of the nation.’ Nine other residential sites in Wasco have defaulted or foreclosed since the beginning of the year. The San Diego-area developer behind the tract was late on more than $1.5 million in payments as of July 7, the filing indicated.”

“Eddie Aguilar, one of nine or so homeowners in the tract, property records show, said the house he bought at auction in November has given him major trouble. A cracked ceiling, unraveling rug, water-spewing shower and other problems have gone unfixed despite dozens of calls, he said. The company did fix a cracked countertop, he said.”

“The lights in his house also blink. ‘If you ever walked into a disco - it’s like that,’ he said.”

“The house came with a one-year warranty provided by the builder, he said. He estimates he has tried to call about 150 times for fixes, but so far only the countertop has been a go. He estimates about 15 of the tract’s 48 lots have completed houses, including several model units. Tall weeds grow on many of the empty lots, he said.”

“Aguilar bought the 1,484-square-foot Bettis Avenue home through Pacific Auction Exchange Inc. for about $180,000. With its current problems he’s afraid he’d get $40,000 to $50,000 less than he paid, if he could sell it at all.”

“‘I sold a beautiful home I loved to be here,’ said Aguilar.”

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Marketplace, “The SEC has released a report on the agencies that gave high marks to subprime securities. Kai Ryssdal: ‘Christopher Cox is the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today, the SEC released its report on credit rating agencies and their role in the subprime mess. Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch are the big ones you’ve heard of.’”

“‘There are ten of them in all, though, and they’ve been criticized harshly for giving top ratings to some of the complicated mortgage-backed securities that tanked after the housing bust.’”

“Amy Scott: “This is the SEC’s first annual report on the credit rating agencies since Congress gave it express oversight in 2006 and a couple of things stood out to me. One was that the report describes just the sheer volume of these complicated deals that these agencies were rating.’”

“‘In one email that’s quoted in the report, analysts were concerned about whether they should be rating one of these deals and one said that the firm’s model for rating the bond didn’t capture half of the deal’s risk but that it could be structured by cows and we would rate it.’”

“Ryssdal: ‘Great.’”

“Scott: ‘The report also finds that the rating agencies failed to disclose significant aspects of the ratings process, they failed to adequately monitor the ratings after they’d been issued — you know, to make sure a Triple-A was still really a Triple-A — and some of the most interesting reading in this report concerns conflicts of interest.’”

OpRisk and Compliance. “Credit rating agencies rushed through ratings for in-demand complex structured products, while failing to effectively divide their analysis from the business side, according to Christopher Cox, chairman of the SEC.”

“‘The public will see that there have been significant problems. There have been instances in which there were people both pitching the business, debating the fees and were involved in the analytical side,’ said Cox.”

“Cox said ratings analysts were deluged with requests that were highly profitable to the agencies and their clients, and ‘the volume of work taxed the staff in ways that caused them to cut corners, that caused them to deviate from their models.’”

From Reuters. “Taiwan financial firms have suffered losses of T$42.572 billion ($1.4 billion) since August 2007 in investments related to U.S. subprime products, the island’s top financial regulator said on Wednesday.”

“‘The Financial Supervisory Commission will supervise financial companies to improve their risk control,’ said Gordon Chen, chairman of the commission, told a news conference.”

From Newsday. “The scaleback at IndyMac is the latest aftershock from the subprime mortgage collapse. Early last year, a hedge fund that had bought IndyMac mortgages as investments, hired Melville-based Continental Home Loans on a trial basis to call hundreds of borrowers to see whether they could work out options on delinquent loans.”

“But more than 90 percent of the loans were beyond saving, said Michael McHugh, head of Continental, and the trial ended two months later. IndyMac then tried to turn itself around by building up its retail business, where it had more control over who could get loans.”

“‘Trying to switch to retail was like turning an aircraft carrier around in a pool,’ McHugh said. ‘It’s a shame. I hate to see companies leave the market right now. We need investors and we need choices.’”

The Whittier Daily News. “An analyst who tracks IndyMac wrote a letter to his clients Tuesday telling them not to buy IndyMac shares. ‘We do not believe that there is any value left for common shareholders,’ wrote Paul Miller, an analyst at Virginia-based Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.”

“Meanwhile Fitch Ratings gave IndyMac an ‘E’ individual rating, which, ‘reflects a bank with very serious problems,’ a written statement issued Tuesday noted. Fitch also rated the stock ‘CC,’ which is not investment grade.”

“An IndyMac spokesman defended the bank and said stock prices should not be the only measure of the company’s soundness, he said. ‘It shouldn’t come as any surprise in this climate that people are not lining up to buy stocks in companies that sell mortgages,’ said the spokesman Evan Wagner.”

The Orlando Sentinel. “Their construction business decimated, cars repossessed and mortgage in danger of default, Jason and Teresa Olive called for relief from their lender, Countrywide Financial Corp. Countrywide referred them to its own ‘Hope’ department.”

‘Six months later, after a call-center runaround, Countrywide’s ‘Hope’ had led to a dead end. The lender foreclosed on their home in June. ‘The ‘Hope’ people were hopeless,’ Teresa Olive said. ‘So we’ve just about given up on them.’”

“‘There are four foreclosures for every person that the Hope Now program has helped,’ said Kathleen Day, a consumer analyst for an advocacy group. ‘There’s just no way they can keep pace. The industry doesn’t have enough manpower to handle 2 million foreclosures.’”

“Countrywide would not comment on the case. ‘Our mission remains to assist our customers,’ the company said in a statement.”

“You’ll have to pardon Jason Olive if he doesn’t think so. ‘What a crock,’ said the house framer, who worked as a subcontractor for various builders until the housing boom went bust. ‘I’ve never been given a runaround like that in my whole life.’”

“‘One time we made too much; next time, we made too little. Whatever the case, they’d come up with another reason to turn us down,’ Teresa Olive said.”

The Morning Call. “Gov. Ed Rendell came to the newest epicenter of the mortgage crisis in Pennsylvania on Tuesday to sign a package of bills that will make mortgage fraud tougher to get away with in the state.”

“Rendell signed the bills at the Exeter Township library, not far from where now-jailed mortgage broker Wesley A. Snyder did business until his companies collapsed in fraud and bankruptcy last year.”

“The governor said 66,000 Pennsylvania families have adjustable-rate subprime loans, with more than 20 percent delinquent. The new laws, he said, can’t help homeowners already in trouble.”

“According to Rendell, the Poconos and the Reading area were the two places that had ‘the most horrendous outcomes’ from mortgage fraud, although the scenarios were different.”

“In the Poconos cases earlier this decade, hundreds of families, many first-time buyers from New York, bought homes at inflated prices that fell into foreclosure, spawning civil and criminal cases.”

“‘I wish the legislative process wasn’t so slow,’ said Alan Jennings, executive director of the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley, saying thousands of homeowners could have been spared foreclosure if the wheels in Harrisburg had turned more quickly. Still he said, ‘it’s important that we challenge the way mortgage brokers do business.’”

The Courier Press. “More than two-thirds of Indiana’s mortgage broker companies could lose their licenses for not complying with a 2007 state law intended to clean up the industry in the wake of the subprime lending and home foreclosure crisis.”

“The 2007 law said that each licensed mortgage loan broker had to have one principal manager, someone with three years’ experience who had passed a state examination. Of 950 affected loan brokerages statewide, principal managers at 639 of them still had not taken the exam by the law’s July 1 deadline, officials said.”

“‘The General Assembly has said this is how Indiana intends to operate,’ said Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, whose office regulates the broker industry. ‘Especially when we have a loan crisis on hand, we are going to hold loan professionals up to a higher standard - and part of that standard is a competency test.’”

“Michael Monaco, president of the Indiana Association of Mortgage Brokers, said giving companies an extra 30 days was fair, since they already had one year to comply.”

“Dave Clark, president of Talon Mortgage in Evansville, passed the exam but said it was not easy. Some will quit the industry and send their clients elsewhere rather than face the exam, he predicted.”

“‘This needed to be done 10 years ago,’ Clark said. ‘They did the right thing, but at the wrong time.’”

The Sacramento Bee. “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a crackdown Tuesday on the exotic loan products offered to risky borrowers that fueled the housing boom.”

“But Sacramento brokers and others said the market has already taken care of that: Most of the loans Bernanke has in his sights haven’t been available for a while.”

“‘Gosh, it’s almost nine to 12 months ago that these loans stopped,’ said Brent Wilson, mortgage strategist with Sacramento’s Comstock Mortgage.”

“‘That, in some ways, is how government reacts. It’s kind of behind the curve,’ said Dustin Hobbs, spokesman for the California Mortgage Bankers Association.”

The Bradenton Herald. “During a news conference Tuesday, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston estimated the new guidelines will help 100,000 families refinance into ‘more affordable FHA-insured loans’ by the end of the year.”

“‘FHASecure will begin to provide additional assistance to subprime borrowers with adjustable rate mortgages and help to restore liquidity and stability to the markets,’ Preston said.”

“Many lenders have found it is not just those with subprime or adjustable rate mortgages that need help in a faltering economy. ‘I think it’s across the board. The exotic mortgages get a lot of publicity, but there are other people who are in trouble whose loans were rather vanilla,’ said David Freed, president of Aim Mortgage of Bradenton.”

“Much like in its previous incarnation, FHASecure is focusing specifically on assisting people in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure, not investors. ‘For investors, foreclosures are going to be something that hurts them financially and hurts their credit, but it’s not going to put them out on the street,’ Freed said.”

“Freed, like many mortgage brokers and lenders, is cautiously optimistic that the new plan will provide the relief needed but had difficulties with it before and are waiting to pass judgment on the new plan.”

“The original incarnation of FHASecure required homeowners to jump through so many hoops, many no longer qualified or were in pre-foreclosure before the paperwork could be completed.”

“‘I can tell you FHASecure was a total disaster,’ Freed said.”

The Press Association. “The average cost of a home being sold at auction has slumped by 17% during the past year, figures show. Homes that went under the hammer between March and May fetched an average of £140,500 - £28,700 less than they sold for during the same period of 2007, according to research by the Liberal Democrats.”

“The study, based on the sale price of 4,748 properties around the country, found the rate of price falls accelerated to 18.5% in May.”

“The party’s Treasury spokesman, Lord Oakeshott, said: ‘Auctions are the sharp end of the housing market where real deals show the prices paid by real buyers. The published house price indices are well behind the game.’”

“He said: “Ministers must wake up now and let housing associations and councils buy empty homes for social housing to rent. ‘The feeble Government response to the housing crash so far has been like throwing pennies down a drain.’”

The Wall Street Journal. “With Britain’s housing boom turning to bust, estate agents are finding it increasingly difficult to make money. For some, the downturn already has proved catastrophic.”

“Mortgage approvals in May dropped 57% from the same time last year, reflecting a roughly 50% fall in the number of homes purchased, according to the British Bankers’ Association.”

“‘Lenders no longer offer 100% mortgages [and] less than 42% of buyers had saved up enough for a 5% deposit,’ says Jo Whincup, an area director for William H. Brown. ‘Many buyers were looking for a property and making offers with no idea about what they could afford.’”

“It is already too late for some estate agents. Cesare & Co., recently absorbed the properties of Page Flatt & Co., a local estate agency in the town of Tring, but not much else of the firm remains and the former owner has moved on. ‘He’s available if we need him,’ a Cesare spokesman said.”

“Would-be buyers like Thom Harrison have the upper hand.”

“Mr. Harrison, a 23-year-old first-time buyer in Liverpool, said he and his partner had viewed 27 properties and considered all but two to be overpriced. They made an offer on one.”

“‘It needed £10,000 [$20,000] of work, so we took off £10,000 and [the seller] wasn’t very happy. If we don’t find [a place to buy] by the end of July, we’ll rent for another six months,’ he said. ‘It’s well worth the wait to save astronomical amounts of money.’”

The Birmingham News. “Regions Financial Corp., the largest bank based in Alabama, is facing a $23 million loan default related to a Florida condo development.”

“The Palms of Riviera Dunes, in Palmetto, Fla., owes the $23 million, according to a Regions lawsuit filed in that state’s Manatee County. Regions, which operates in 16 states, wants to take control of the property and sell it to recoup the lost money.”

“According to the development’s Web site, the condos offered ’spectacular water views of the Manatee River, spacious terraces, granite and Corian countertops, ceramic floor tile, raised panel wood cabinets and much more! The Palms condominiums range from $346,900 to $1.8 million.’”

“It didn’t work out, as have not many of the riskier real-estate loans Regions and other banks made from 2001 through 2005, when it seemed property values would never fall.”

“‘The defendant does not have the financial capability of seeing that the condominium project proceeds forward while maintaining the costs associated with running the common areas of the condominium project,’ Regions said in its suit.”

“The bank will probably have a tough time selling the property promptly, according to Tony Plath, a banking professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte.”

“‘Not in that market, which is one of the most overpriced and ill-liquid in the country,’ Plath said of the southwest Florida coast. ‘Now, Regions is going to have incur additional costs to keep the grass cut and the alligators out of the swimming pool.’”

The Dallas Morning News reports from Texas. “New-home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area continued to dive in the second quarter - down almost a third from a year ago. It was the lowest quarterly home sales total in a decade. And starts of new homes were off about 30 percent from second quarter 2007, according to Metrostudy Inc.”

“The pace of home construction in the D-FW area is less than half what it was at the peak of the market, said Mark Dotzour, an economist with Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center.”

“Tuesday’s quarterly new-home sales report comes just a day after the latest statistics for the pre-owned housing market showed a 20 percent decline in sales in North Texas in June. Sales of pre-owned homes are down 15 percent and sales of new homes are off 32 percent comparing the first six months of the year with the first half of 2007.”

“Dawn Lyon, her husband and their four children had been in their lakefront Rockwall home for little more than a year when their $150,000 adjustable-rate mortgage reset. Monthly payments of $1,200 jumped to $1,600 in September. At the same time, the family was hit with weak business prospects and children’s medical bills.”

“They stopped making their mortgage payments and, by Christmas, the family was considering bankruptcy.”

“The Lyons contacted Southwest Home, which bought their house for $130,000 in March. Southwest Home arranges short sales. ‘It definitely felt good to get out from under that house, and not have to worry about bankruptcy,’ Ms. Lyon said.”

“Many of Southwest Home’s customers are police officers or postal workers who bought their first home recently and now struggle to make the mortgage payments.”

“‘There are brand-new homes that are being foreclosed on,’ said owner of Southwest Home Solutions, Mike Arnold. ‘You can still smell the paint.’”

The Fort Worth Business Press. “As the fallout from the housing slump continues to mount, mortgage fraud continues to top the list of problems throughout the United States and in Dallas-Fort Worth’s own backyard. Of the top 10 states experiencing mortgage fraud in 2006, the FBI includes Texas as one of the top 10 mortgage fraud ‘hot spots.’”

“‘It’s bad, but it’s going to get worse,’ said Scott Burdette, managing director of an independent organization of appraisal companies based in Fort Worth. ‘A lot of people have been charged with mortgage fraud, but the numbers are going to keep growing for a while.’”

“Gilbert Denizard, a loan officer with Fort Worth’s Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., said many mortgage fraud schemes were covered up by home appreciation. Over-valued homes appreciated and eventually caught up with the inflated value, he said. But once the housing boom came to a halt, appreciation could no longer make up for an over-valued home.”

“‘Many times, if there’s a mistake in the home’s value, there’s enough equity in the house for another person to come along and bail us out,’ Denizard said. ‘But once things started slowing down, it’s like if you’re driving along on I-30 and someone up ahead taps on their brakes…Before you know it, everything behind them has slowed down. That’s essentially what happened in the housing market.’”

“In the late 1990s, owning a home was made easier through government-sponsored lending programs such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Burdette said, and the ease contributed to the housing bubble seen throughout the country.”

“‘We used to have willing and able buyers, but in the late ’90s we had willing and enabled buyers,’ Burdette said. ‘The creation of the programs that let so many people own a home lowered the bar just enough and created an environment where this stuff could be done.’”

“Burdette said much of the crime wave originated with appraisers giving inflated appraisals of homes during the housing boom. ‘We were supposed to be the gatekeepers, but we functioned as the doorman instead,’ said Burdette.”

The Kerrville Daily Times. “Many economists remain focused on what they call a U.S. housing bust, or even a crisis. According to Kerrville Realtor Brandon Douglass, the market here is feeling the effects.”

“‘We are an insulated market in some regards because we don’t really have big industry, so we don’t feel the pain of layoffs, etc.,’ Douglass said. ‘But we are feeling the effects from other places. … We are a lagging indicator of how things get in other places.’”

“‘I think the big part of the reason we haven’t had more buyers is, A, the insecurity of the market and, B, the fact that they can’t sell their homes in the other markets,’ he said.”

“From Jan. 1 to June 30, there have been 560 new listings on the market compared with 484 during the same time last year. The number of single-family residences that have sold, however, is down more than 17 percent for the year. Last year, 473 homes sold through June 30, compared with 392 this year.”

“Douglass said that in previous years, his office would see at least one buyer from California or Florida a week. It has now been months since he has seen buyers from those markets.”

“‘There are still a large number of folks that want to buy in our area and cannot do so until they sell their homes in other areas,’ Douglass said. ‘We can’t put our heads in the sand. It’s just the reality of it.’”

The American Statesman. “In more evidence that the national housing troubles are hitting Central Texas, one of every 133 homes in Travis County was posted for foreclosure in the first six months of the year - compared with one in 265 homes in 2001. The same trend prevailed in Williamson County.”

“The largest increase in Travis County postings was among homes valued at $300,000 up to $500,000. Those postings were up 44 percent from a year ago. Postings for homes from $500,000 up to $1 million rose 22 percent. Postings for homes at $1 million or more rose 18 percent.”

“The region’s rising foreclosures…are higher than they were in 2004, when Central Texas was still in the doldrums of the tech bust. They also answer those who say rising foreclosures simply reflect the increased number of homes in the region.”

“George Roddy Sr., president of Foreclosure Listing Service Inc, said, the contention ‘that today’s foreclosure posting rate on a per capita basis is not as bad as it was a decade ago does not fly.’”

“Jeffee Palmer had gotten used to the inconvenience caused by construction on Lavaca Street between 17th and 18th streets, and then she started wondering what happened to it.”

“In addition to the 17th Street closure, a block of the right lane of Lavaca Street has been closed for almost a year. The developers of La Vista on Lavaca, a luxury condominium and office project, took out a permit with the City of Austin on April 20, 2007, to close the block during construction, said Jason Redfern, manager of the Right of Way Management Division in the city’s Watershed Protection and Development Review Department.”

“The developers paid $99,900 to the city to keep the street closed for six months, Redfern said. The permit was to have been renewed for the same fee every six months until construction was completed.’

“The developers renewed their street permit in November 2007 but failed to renew it in April, Redfern said. Palmer said she has not seen anyone working at the site for months.”

“Redfern said that he began making inquiries and that he was told that construction would resume soon. ‘This one is very unusual,’ Redfern said. ‘You normally don’t see construction starting and stopping like this.’”

The Record Star. “Soaring fuel prices, the housing market slow down, and other economic forces have claimed one long-time Robstown business. Access Chevrolet closed its doors June 20. The Access Chevrolet sales office in Calallen also closed June 20.”

“‘Continued changes in the marketplace due to the housing market slow down, high fuel prices and other outside influences have placed severe pressure on retail car dealers,’ said dealership owner Charlie Massey.”

“‘I think housing started the downhill affect,’ Charlie said. ‘Demand is down because they can’t use their homes as (automated teller machines).’”

From KTRK Houston. “Struggling to sell, some homeowners forced to pay more property taxes, while the housing market continues to drop. We found it’s a problem affecting almost half the neighborhoods in Harris County.”

“HCAD started working Saturdays last week to handle all the property tax protests. And with dozens of neighborhoods going through price dips and spotty foreclosures, many people are complaining the tax man is ignoring the market.”

“‘My taxes are very high and the market is down’ said homeowner Jaleh Duran. ‘I came to get help.’”

“‘We hear that argument a lot from homeowners,’ said HCAD Deputy Chief Appraiser Guy Griscom.”

“Tito Guerra’s taxes went up on his Denver Harbor home. According to realtors average sales prices dropped 38% from May 2008 to May 2007, but taxes went up 6 and half percent. ‘I don’t think it’s fair,’ (said) Guerra.”

“The taxes up, prices down problem is especially obvious in areas where home values are less than $150,000 dollars and that is where nearly all of these examples are. ‘The starter home, move up home 85-150 has dropped down considerably,’ said HAR Chairman. ‘I would say 13-15%.’”

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