In The First Or Second Inning Of A Nine-Inning Game
The Daily Press reports from California. “KB Home is discovering that less could be more when it comes to luring skittish buyers in a housing slump. In recent months, the company has rolled out a new line of smaller, more affordable homes that it hopes will jump-start sagging sales, including at the company’s community in Victorville. ‘Prices for the smaller units have not been set, but they will be priced at a very affordable level,’ said Scott Laurie, KB Home division president for the Inland Valley.”
“Some analysts are now projecting it could take as long as four years for builders to sell off excess inventory. Homebuyers can expect more discounting this year, according to Greg Gieber and other analysts.”
“Like other homebuilders, Los Angeles-based KB Home has struggled to find buyers as would-be purchasers wait for prices to tumble before jumping into the market. Homebuilders incur losses every day a new home stands empty. They have tried everything from slashing prices to tossing in free kitchen upgrades to entice buyers.”
The LA Times. “Nestled on the western shore of the Salton Sea, the town doesn’t have a supermarket or movie theater or drugstore. But it has as many as 250 homes for sale, most of them newly built, a huge supply for a place with just 1,440 people.”
“When real estate values began soaring a few years ago, builders flocked here. Land was cheap. Builders figured that people priced out of Los Angeles and San Diego would discover Salton City and the other towns in Imperial County.”
“Now, with home values sliding, mortgage rates edging up and gasoline prices on an upward trend, that assumption appears premature at best. Imperial County, at least for the moment, seems a subdivision too far.”
“‘Builders are like lemmings. They saw a few of their peers going to Imperial County and they all joined in,’ housing consultant Patrick Duffy said. ‘They didn’t do market studies. They just crossed their fingers.’”
“Not far away is the Ranch, a 273-house project by Stockton-based Matthews Homes that is just getting underway. A steady stream of potential buyers has come to check out the models, which cost up to $355,000 for a four-bedroom, 2,600-square-foot home.”
“Sales agent Teresa Castillo said she had sold three. However, two of the deals are ’shaky. The buyers are having credit issues,’ Castillo said.”
“In a tightened lending environment, it’s common for deals to fall through or for buyers to simply change their minds. New-home sales in Imperial County in the first four months of 2007 totaled 259, according to DataQuick, down sharply from 677 in the same period a year ago.”
“Deals are getting done. Credit the rock-bottom prices. Some brand-new homes sell for less than $200,000 and, thanks to the oversupply, are getting even cheaper.”
“ERA Investment Group, the biggest Salton City developer, touts the community as both ‘California’s last frontier’ and ‘the next hot market.’ ERA’s sales brochure…touts ‘breath-taking views’ and claims the sea ‘teems with fish.’”
“Carol Hines, an office temp worker in Brawley, remembers camping on the shores of the sea about 15 years ago. ‘This developer came bounding up and said, ‘Are you interested in buying some land?’ Hines said. ‘I looked around at the dead birds and the dead fish and said, ‘I’m kind of sorry I’m even visiting.’”
The Bakersfield Californian. “Default notices continue to pile up for properties related to Crisp & Cole. The latest default notice sent to David Crisp last month concerns a $1.75 million loan for a stately Seven Oaks mansion.”
“Three homes are scheduled for auction this week alone. Nearly 40 others, most in southwest Bakersfield, are in some stage of foreclosure.”
“Californian research has uncovered a pattern of property turnover among Crisp & Cole associates, steep price increases and 100 percent financing by subprime lenders in many of the properties now defaulting.”
“For example, a southwest property on Via Bonita Drive initially sold for $342,000 in October 2005. Five months later, after some deed shuffling with a business associate of Crisp & Cole, a Crisp family member bought the home with 100 percent financing for $549,000.”
“The new price showed an increase of $207,000, or more than 60 percent, in less than six months. The property defaulted in May.”
The Orange County Register. “Tough times in the real estate industry mean booming business for Michael S. Buescher, a Trabuco construction contractor who specializes in cleaning and fixing up repossessed homes.”
“In Orange County, the number of foreclosures through May hit 1,031, seven-fold the number a year ago. Default notices soared 121 percent, to 4,520 homes, during the first five months of the year.”
“‘We get more every day,’ Buescher said. ‘We’ve been waiting eight years for this to start happening again.’”
“As more rehab offers trickled in, Buescher felt almost like he was back in the good old days of the ’90s, the last time Southern California’s real estate market tanked. During that era, he employed five crews to spiff up an average 30 repossessed homes a month.”
“So far this year, business has taken Buescher to dozens of trash-outs and fix-ups in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, to gated communities and rat-infested crack dens, all united under the title ‘real estate owned’ or ‘bank repo.’”
“Real estate agent Mike Roberts…has revived his Laguna Niguel company Trust Solutions Inc., which offers homeowners who are upside-down on their loans a legal method for selling their property without having to go through lender approval. So far this year, Roberts said Trust Solutions has negotiated one or two deals a month. But he expects business to pick up as more homeowners find themselves underwater.”
“‘I suspect by late summer we’ll be doing one a day,’ he said. ‘That’s what we were doing the last time the market was in trouble in ‘94, ‘95, ‘96 and early ‘97.’”
“Patti Donovan, president of a Santa Ana firm that manages and markets real-estate owned properties, said she got back in the business last year after a four-year hiatus when the market was hot and she ‘pretty much played a lot of golf.’ Donovan, who started in the foreclosure business in 1984, said she expects the down market to last three to five years.”
“‘The difference this cycle is it’s not the economy that’s causing this to go upside down,’ she said. ‘It’s more the types of loans – 100 percent financing, adjustable rate mortgages. Before, it was people losing jobs. Now it’s just people borrowing too much.’”
“Robert Rosenthal is a San Fernando Valley attorney who specializes in evicting tenants from foreclosed homes. He expects a lot of jobs over the next three or four years as more people lose their homes. ‘With this market now, my guess is we’re in the first or second inning of a nine-inning baseball game,’ he said.”
“As the repairs get more complex, Buescher’s fees escalate. Granite counters, a reshingled roof, new wiring, they all make his cash register ring. ‘My job is to convince the client to spend more money to sell the house,’ he said. ‘But at this point, the banks aren’t willing, because the market hasn’t hit bottom.’”
My brother called me from Texas to tell me about a great place to buy a house: The Salton Sea. Apparently they are pitching this area to Texans! Meanwhile, the Texans keep pitching Lake Travis to Californians. The bubble isn’t dead yet.
Not all dead. Only mostly dead.
Its getting better.
Don’t rush a miracle man. You get lousy miracles. Have fun storming the castle.
Once crazy credit is finally once and for all gone, a stake will be driven through this bubbles heart and it will be dead. As long as loans continue to be made available for more than folks can repay the bubble will keep going, although it is slowly “deflating”
GH, crazy credit has gone belly up but the powers that be have formed a tight circle around the emperor to prevent us from seeing his nakedness. And it is not just in America but all over the world as confirmed by the article in the link below:
http://www.livemint.com/2007/06/26235635/Liquidity-crunch-demand-slump.html
The party is well and truly over and we can now expect to start seeing golden carriages turning into pumpkins and mice. Right before our very eyes.
I am not so sure. If you have a decent fico (> 700?) you can still get some pretty nasty loans. If this was not the case, sales would be at or around zero right now. I keep reading sales off by 20% and such, which indicated there is still some 80% of last years volume. What I mean by crazy credit is lending more that 3X annual verified salary to anyone regardless of credit score and not requiring at least a 10% and really to look at historic norms 20% down payment.
Lazarus, that’s a bit of a cheat. The article is from June 27, 2007.
“a stake will be driven through this bubbles heart and it will be dead”
thank you so much for the first good laugh i’ve had today. and its 5 pm cali time!
The fact speculators aren’t buying is helping heaps too. Many of them lost tens or hundreds of thousands and ruined their credit and learned the hard way. The subprime market is dying and many people can’t get financing, those who still can will just get foreclosed in a couple years. I think we will be more than halfway to the bottom in 2009
It’s all over except for the massive price drops. Those are taking some time.
I suspect, once sellers (I am thinking foreclosure holders mostly here) realize that buyers are severly restricted in terms of what they can borrow and therefore pay, prices will fall fairly quickly.
There will only be two groups able to sell in the coming years. Those who bought pre-bubble and foreclosure holders. Many will be upside down and will struggle for years to make their payments, but will be unable to sell. Long time owners may choose not to sell, as they will be indignant over the loss of value, which again leaves lenders with foreclosed properties to dump.
Housing markets generally don’t crash unless there is a drastic change in the amount of money the general populace has to spend on housing. Really we won’t see a crash so much as a float to the bottom unless the economy takes a dip. Conventional wisdom says that you really shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of your take home on a mortgage, but right now many are stretched at 70 percent of their take home going towards housing. It really won’t take much of an external force to cut the parachute.
For those that don’t know the Salton Sea is…
1. Saltier than the pacific ocean
2. Smells like bung
3. Fish die off in huge numbers regularly
4. Contains pesticide runnoff from all the surrounding irrigated farmland.
5. Is drainage basin of one of Americas most polluted rivers
6. There is no place for the Salton Sea to drian so everything just collects there.
All in all the place is pretty gross. which is unfortunate because it could be so much more if it was cleaned up.
Anybody that has paid over 50k for a house out there is getting ripped off.
I know a guy who bought a small place with a couple of acres of land out on the east side about 20 years back for $7500.
Don’t forget it gets hotter than Hades there
This can actually be good because this would be one among the few places on earth where ice-nice does not work. Melting temperature for ice-nice is 114.4 degree farhenheit. May Bokonon rest Kurt Vonnegut’s soul.
The Salton Sea’s existence is also a man-made accident –caused by an irrigation srew-up 100 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea. Eventually, it will simply evaporate, leaving nothing behind but dead fish carcases, abandoned buildings and some perplexed investors.
LOL, the ERA sales group’s new brochure, after modification by shadash:
“The Salton Sea community…All in all, the place is pretty gross.”
OMG the Salton “Sea”? I remember going there as we were going to Anza-Borrego park to hike in the spring flowers.
There was already a maze of obviously abandoned developments from decades ago, a deserted horrible Mad-Max-like mutant-death-camp feel.
And the smell? We were overcome with nausea as soon as we opened the car doors. It woudl be difficult to stand more than 5 minutes of it, much less live there.
The worst south east SD ghetto is like, hmm, 16th arr. in Paris.
OMG the Salton “Sea”? I remember going there as we were going to Anza-Borrego park to hike in the spring flowers.
There was already a maze of obviously abandoned developments from decades ago, a deserted horrible Mad-Max-like post-sarin/plutonium mutant-death-camp feel.
And the smell? We were overcome with nausea as soon as we opened the car doors. It woudl be difficult to stand more than 5 minutes of it, much less live there.
The worst south east SD ghetto is like, hmm, 16th arr. in Paris in comparison.
There is a frightening movie called the Salton Sea starring Val Kilmer about methamphetamine dealers and junkies. The arch criminal in the movie (played by D’Onofrio from Law&Order) resides out there in the desert. To be quite honest I thought it was a fictitious name until reading this.
Pregnant women and children are advised not to eat fish from the Salton Sea. And if it ain’t good for them I’m not eatin’ it either!!
It’s really starting to get interesting! Foreclosure-related businesses (rehabbers, lawyers, property managers) are booming. How soon will the supply of foreclosed properties exceed the bottom feeders’ ability to buy them? When that happens, look out below!
My barber told me today about some great deals on houses. He even expounded on the NO down, cash back financing
‘Prices for the smaller units have not been set, but they will be priced at a very affordable level,’
– The county-wide median prices have been artificially supported by higher percentages of expensive luxury homes being sold. Soon the median county-wide price will plummet as sales in the lower end of the market increase. The increase will be driven by smaller new homes and price-capitulation in the lower end of the resale market.
Combine an increase in the lower-end sales volume of 10% or so, and a modest 5% drop in all price categories and you could end up with a double-digit median price collapse.
Don’t also forget that REO/foreclosure sales never get included in the (Realtor-tabulated) medians.
Until those homes get resold…at prices still less than the other listings.
“a 273-house project by Stockton-based Matthews Homes that is just getting underway.”
Matthews has a development here in town that is an absolute failure. Sounds like they have some solid management at that company…
“Matthews has a development here in town that is an absolute failure. Sounds like they have some solid management at that company…”
Geezuz, how are these guys hanging on? I can think of a half dozen developments in Reno which are absolute disasters. We’re going to start seeing massive builder/developer BK’s soon. I can’t imagine how it can be avoided.
Let us not forget all of the major HB share buybacks in 2005 & 2006. Those were designed to prop up earnings numbers as profits dropped. Unfortunately, they will now have a double negative for the builders. 1) They will magnify per share losses as their “profits” turn into losses. 2) They will have destroyed their cash positions at a time when they need cash most. But I bet Ara Hovnanian and Robert Toll won’t have to scrounge for their next meal any time soon. Their employees won’t be so lucky.
Yes, these two cash out big time and are laughing all the way to the bank. Life is great!!!
Matthews homes just finished 20 homes in Mesquite NV. Mesquite makes St George look good. More unbult lots then built, 90% retiree, and water and power problems (I.E) The city Hasnt kept up with the needs of water or power. There is no natural gas connection to the city. http://mesquitelocal.com/pages/828editorial
In the print edition of the Californian they have the total of the defaults and it exceeds $24 million…
Are you the same crispy&cole mentioned in the Califronian as well? The one who sold his kin into foreclosure? If so, I hope you do some time for fraud. Better yet, maybe your relative is really as dumb as you thought and decides to choke the life out of you before you have the chance to ruin anyone else.
“For example, a southwest property on Via Bonita Drive initially sold for $342,000 in October 2005. Five months later, after some deed shuffling with a business associate of Crisp & Cole, a Crisp family member bought the home with 100 percent financing for $549,000.”
“The new price showed an increase of $207,000, or more than 60 percent, in less than six months. The property defaulted in May.”
LOL
No, Brian, he is not.
Stick around, kid, you might learn something.
Brian,
Click through on the name to his blog, and all will become clear.
(CrispY picked his blogname as a deliberate parody.)
Whoops, you don’t pass the test
My Mom called me this morning to tell me about the LA Times article, I just started to laugh when she said Salton Sea. I am laughing as I write this….omfg….SALTON SEA??? For you people out of State, just imagine Hell except a few degrees hotter.
Salton Sea…the REAL death valley!
unbearable heat + humidity from the big sea = worse than what you people can imagine about Phoenix.
Was a big sea, just like Badwater (Death Valley). Shrinking fast. Will be gone in a couple decades. I’ve been around most of it on both bicycle and motorcycle. NE side of Salton Sea up on grid roads away from Bombay Beach is “old redneck” and exurbia of Indio/Coachella - good place to be attacked by packs of wild dogs. Western side is more tony, coming down from hills to the West. Salton City is kind of funky. Once was great fishing there, but water is getting saltier and saltier as it shrinks.
Incidentally, the Salton Sea is only the latest iteration of the inland lake. It’s apparently happened several times, the largest being Lake Cuchilla (which went up to 12 meters above sea level, then took around five decades to evaporate. Several times.)
There’s a legend about a lost pearl ship in the 1600s, carried into the lake by a tidal bore and beached when they couldn’t get back to the ocean. I thought it was a fantastical idea— a pearl ship, fifty or sixty miles inland. Apparently the idea (at least) isn’t implausible.
(I can see it now: Buy Salton Sea land, there’s pearls!)
Check out the local weather for Salton City… 4th of July forecast = 116 degrees.
http://tinyurl.com/yv4fxn
The Salton Sea is….bleak. There’s no other word for it.
Are these homebuilders on crack? Who the hell would put a housing development next to an ecological disaster area? From the tone of the Wikipedia article, the Salton Sea sounds like it’s Hell’s own ocean.
OK, y’all are going to laugh, and I’ve mentioned this before but I BOUGHT two homes on the west edge of the Salton Sea in spring of 2005, in despair of ever affording a home in Los Angeles (errr, I thought I would uhhh, flip them in six months). Thank freakin’ god the developer couldn’t deliver them in 12 months due to a construction backlog as I have since found God, er Ben. I got my deposit back on both. Pulling out of that was the best decision I’ve ever made!!!!
Dude, you were really at the edge of a cliff on that one! Congratulations for not becoming a fool!
What were you thinking? I’m serious, I just don’t understand what goes through the head of people buying these houses… and when you read articles about FBs, it’s always some skewed sob story and they try to stay away from the whole greed issue (TWO houses?).
So what was your situation? What was your plan? For once, I have the opportunity to ask and not feel bad about it.
““ERA Investment Group, the biggest Salton City developer, touts the community as both ‘California’s last frontier’ and ‘the next hot market.’ ERA’s sales brochure…touts ‘breath-taking views’ and claims the sea ‘teems with fish.’””
““Carol Hines, an office temp worker in Brawley, remembers camping on the shores of the sea about 15 years ago. ‘This developer came bounding up and said, ‘Are you interested in buying some land?’ Hines said. ‘I looked around at the dead birds and the dead fish and said, ‘I’m kind of sorry I’m even visiting.’””
I drove around the Salton Sea last October, just to see what was there and take some photos. Very bleak. Dead fish on the shore.
Not exactly a fresh breeze ever off this body of water. I remember an area on the west side where streets and sewers (fire hydrants) had been laid out for a subdivision. From the age of the pavement, it looked like the roads were at least 30 years old. Still very few homes. On the west side, a gas station and convenience store would constitute a high level of services. Even if the climate weren’t awful, this would be a bad place to live. It looks like the only time anything ever happens here is only briefly and at the end of a boom.
“For example, a southwest property on Via Bonita Drive initially sold for $342,000 in October 2005. Five months later, after some deed shuffling with a business associate of Crisp & Cole, a Crisp family member bought the home with 100 percent financing for $549,000.”
“The new price showed an increase of $207,000, or more than 60 percent, in less than six months. The property defaulted in May.”
Thank you Greenspan and the Wall Street gangs who made this possible.
A chance for the common Joe 6-pack to take back from the bank, 200K legally.
The loan is probably owned by Fannie or a pension fund. J6P will be holding the bag as usual
I can’t believe they’re building a subdivision along the Salton Sea. It may sound romantic but goodness the smell of the “sea” is terrible. There is nothing out there and it’s not really close to San Diego or LA. Maybe the bubble has bottomed since this building along the Salton Sea has to be the low point.
However, just up the road from the Salton Sea are some very pretty date palm farms. If you’re in the area, I would recommend driving there just to see all the date palms, they are beautiful.
Bissonnette died Friday after a pursuit by police, who had tried to stop him at Jamboree Road and East Coast Highway in Newport Beach about 12:45 a.m. He was suspected of driving while intoxicated.
The pursuit ended about four minutes later at a cul-de-sac in Costa Mesa when he drove his Mercedes-Benz into a patrol car and officers then opened fire, authorities said.
…
Bissonnette grew up in the San Fernando Valley and joined the Navy after high school. He had his own mortgage business, which he ran from a home office.
He had had previous run-ins with authorities, his sister said, but she did not elaborate.
“I really don’t know what ran through his mind, but I think that in that moment he may have thought of the disappointment he would cause to his fiancee and his family,” she said.
http://tinyurl.com/2geld8
“The new price showed an increase of $207,000, or more than 60 percent, in less than six months. The property defaulted in May.”
The property do not default, the buyer did. I’m sure this is just the begining for the Crispy family!
“did not default”
I visited my mother in Victorville yesterday. No homes are selling. One house near her has been vacant for one year starting at 307k … now it is listed at 249k. Zero interest because of so many other for sale signs nearby. The High Desert area is getting slammed very hard. No decent paying jobs and horrible commutes. Tens of thousands of home buyers flood the area during the boom, soon the reality check will happen and the panic will set in.
Anyone that buys in Victorville during the bubble is a fool. And yes, I’ve lived in Victorville. Not a bad place before, if you like quiet desert area in Southern California. I once owned a home up there (which I have since sold) which I bought at the end of the last housing bubble from a builder on the last gasps of bankruptcy. The builder had dozens of homes to chose from, the one we got was on half an acre of property for $115K (after we bargained the builder down from $125K. Imagine, BARGAINING with a home builder!). I shudder to think what some FBer would pay for that home now. The home wasn’t that bad, but the commute for us was very long, very few services in the area at the time…now it takes my relatives who still live in the area two hours to commute to work, a drive which previously was 30 minutes. Traffic congestion has gone to hell in that area (try driving down Bear Valley road now anytime during the day to see what I mean). Add to the increasing cost of gas and the only way I’d ever move into this area again was if I was retired and never had to drive anywhere again.
I laugh when I hear anyone pays $300K+ for a home there now. When I bought up there, $300K literaly bought you a mansion, now its a stuccoed piece of crap within touching distance of your neighbor.
My relatives who live up there are now fed up with the commute and have been trying to sell, with no success. Their home, which they have listed for the past 2 years for $300k (which they originally bought for 90K and heloced) will not sell. At all. And they refuse to budge on the price, because they want as much $$$ as possible so they can cash out, move out of state, and Californicate some other area. So there greed is costing them, as they are now very unhappy with where they are living now.
They will lose all their equity and end with nothing. Tell them to drop the price down to $250k or even $200k, take that money and run!
They will lose all their equity and end with nothing.
Good. This means they won’t be able to Californicate some other area for at least a decade.
Got 10% down?
Believe me, I’ve tried explaining to them that they need to drop thier home price. They’ve heloced their home so now they have to sell for $150K minimum before they see any profit. If they listed their home in the $250K range they could still come out $100K ahead, which if they move out of California to another area, wait out the housing crash and rent somewhere until housing prices return to some semblence of sanity, that $100K would be a respectable down payment.
But they want to hear none of it. They want a brand new home several times the size of their old one and they want to pay for it in cash. And its not as if their current home is tiny, its 1600square feet on a quarter of an acre of property (good luck trying to buy anything better in size in this bubble without spending like crazy). And they refuse to rent, at all. The wife of my relative is adament about that; to her renting is for poor people, college students, and unmarried singles, her idea of i.e. “lesser people”. What a fool. Their home isn’t going to sell now and they’ve let quit a bit of possible equity drain away. (Meanwhile people like me are renting homes that they dream of owning for equal to or less than their mortgage payment.)
Salton Sea - show these idiots this movie. Or at least read this review of the movie. This is published in a local rag in Albuquerque NM. Here is part of the article, and the link to the entire review. People building there is an absolute joke. I haven’t personally been there. But been close, and it looks like HELL - only hotter. And smells worse than the sewer.
http://www.alibi.com/index.php?story=19379&scn=film
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Apt documentary takes a look at one of the odder, more tragic places in America
By Jessica Cassyle Carr
This is God’s mailbox. Directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer
There was never a story quite like this: In a matter of several years, a dry, salty desert basin in Southern California becomes an unintentional lake. This corner of the Earth gradually transforms from affluent resort to ecological massacre. A century later the place remains a massacre, a “beautifully awful paradise” where “success and failure collide.” How American.
During the first decade of the 20 th century, an engineering accident on the Colorado River propelled by heavy rainfall and melting snow caused the river to swell and break. For two years it flowed uncontrollably into what had been known as the Salton Sink, a mass of Southern California land located below sea level. Formerly the site of heavy salt mining operations, the Salton Sink filled up with water and became the Salton Sea.
In the century between the man-made lake’s accidental formation and now, the Salton Sea experienced marvelous highs and tragic lows. The shape-shifting lake, averaging 15 miles across and 35 miles long, should have eventually evaporated but is instead continually replenished by often polluted agricultural runoff, meanwhile growing saltier by the year.
“It’s the greatest sewer the world has ever seen,” says narrator John Waters during the opening segment of Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea . The documentary, co-directed by USC graduates Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, begins with heavy montage—scenes of flooded buildings, rusted automobile shells, shoddy new constructions, iridescent pools gleaming with stagnant water and a generally disconcerting portrait of decay in the desert.
Attracting legions of families and the rich and famous alike, the Salton Sea was on its way to becoming the next Palm Springs.
This prosperity was short-lived, however. During the ’50s and ’60s hurricanes and subsequent floods wreaked havoc on the area. With no outlet, the unnatural body of water is less a living lake and more an enormous puddle. In turn, floods did fatal damage, submerging shorefront property, yacht clubs, boat ramps and once-filled parking lots. Moreover, the promise of development and population increase were never realized as plots of land had been purchased but never built upon. It was the beginning of the end.
In the ’90s, millions of dead fish turned up on the shores of the Salton Sea as a result of a toxic combination by high temperatures, bacteria, diminished oxygen from too much salt and a booming monoculture of tilapia, dead from botulism. Aside from the unpleasantness resulting from millions of rotting fish, waterfowl began dying off as well after eating the contaminated fish.
It seems unlikely that anyone would want to live under these circumstances, but indeed they do. The documentary profiles the bizarre and unlikely lives of those who never abandoned the temporary paradise, as well as those who have made this disaster their adopted home. Inhabitants are a cast of characters akin to a circus sideshow. They range from original residents harboring dreams of the sea returning to its original glory, realtors trying to see it realized, a man constructing a mud mountain in the name of Jesus, a leather-skinned nudist who preaches peace by the roadside, an oversexed Hungarian Revolutionary and a group of black, inner-city families trying to escape the violence of Los Angeles.
This story contains such a wealth of intriguing elements, it would seem to have the ability to tell itself. But in an era fraught with incompetent documentaries, Metzler and Springer do an excellent job of turning every stone and translating the sea’s story. At times graphic devices are a little corny, in the same way star wipes are corny, but this is hardly detrimental. With bonuses like narration by John Waters and music by Friends Of Dean Martinez, the 73-minute movie becomes even more enticing. Never has real-life death and decay been such a feast for the modern imagination.
hurricanes???
Yes. Hurricanes sweep up from Mexico and hit that area every once in a while. It’s far enough inland that the damage is rarely severe, but with the odd origins of the Salton Sea, I can imagine it could get pretty badly flooded.
I used to go camping there as a kid, and it was pretty cool. That was about 35 years ago, though.
The history of the Salton sea is very interesting (see Wikipedia). Prior attempts at development have spawned the current ecological disaster.
figured that people priced out of Los Angeles and San Diego would discover Salton City and the other towns in Imperial County.
I knew about this horrible place when I lived in Los Angeles. it didn’t give me any desire to visit the place, yet alone LIVE there. And which A$$HAT builder thinks someone is going to commute to a job in LA or SD from that place. That makes Temecula, Riverside, Lake Elsinore, or some other flung out horrid commute place look positively next door.
people priced out of Los Angeles and San Diego would discover Salton City
It’s not clear how this would help, as the ratio of house price to achievable income is surely even higher at the Salton Sea than in LA or San Diego - indeed, what jobs of any kind are there?
There is a reason the Mohave Desert has thousands of miles of empty desert land. It is not a desirable place to live. No water. Very few roads. No services. And too far to commute to one of the still hellholes (ie Los Angeles, San Bernadino, Victorville) that MAY have a job or two.
Prices for the smaller units have not been set, but they will be priced at a very affordable level,’ said Scott Laurie, KB Home division president for the Inland Valley.”
Affordable in California could mean $500,000 for a 3/2
Jerry, in the last topic, you responded that Fannie and Freddie are still buying subprime at 100% LTV. I would very much like to verify this, because I will take up the issue with the OFHEO.
I was listening to a mortgage radio talk show this weekend and the host is the owner of a mortgage company called Texas Lending. He was bragging about how he got a customer in a 100% LTV Fannie loan with a 529 credit score just last week. He said that contrary to popular opinion, those loans were still available and to come on down and he could set one up for anybody. It makes me sick because when the SHTF you know taxpayers will have to clean up the mess just like the S&L ponzi.
That is my least favorite radio commercial. I turn on the KERA pledge drive whenever I hear that voice.
I hate that idiot almost as much as I hate the “bless your heart” mortgage guy.
incessant,
I posted a link on the other thread. They are still offering 100% LTV loans.
No wonder sales are only down 20-30%. Wait until REO sales really get going and people realize that home prices CAN go down.
Down payments will come back.
Oh god, I’d never live on the Salton Sea. Your like hey this is not sand? What is this? Then someone yells out: Fish bones!
“Breathtaking views”!!! Yeah, when the wind blows the wrong way!
I go down the west side of that impromptu set out of ‘Mad Max’ whenever I have to visit MCAS-Yuma. It makes me think of what lower Wisconsin would look like after a nuclear exchange.
““Some analysts are now projecting it could take as long as four years for builders to sell off excess inventory.”
Can’t believe MSM would actually give an honest preview of the 7th inning….
“‘The difference this cycle is it’s not the economy that’s causing this to go upside down,’ she said. ‘It’s more the types of loans – 100 percent financing, adjustable rate mortgages. Before, it was people losing jobs. Now it’s just people borrowing too much.’”
Uhm…like maybe the other hammer hasn’t quite dropped yet since
the US economy has been runnin’ on HELOC’s and new credit card
issuance for the last decade.
And that 40% of the jobs created over the last 5 years have been real estate related.
Like maybe trillions in debt have been able to post-pone an
job-busting recession. Whatever those that are left after all the offshoring goin’ on.
Have another Chinese catfish.
Gonna be interestin’ when the pink slips s to all these dual income households with one partner workin’ for a school for lavish health bennies
Yep. Google “2 income trap” and read some of the links to better understand this sad phenomenon.
The book was written by Elizabeth Warren (of the Warren Group often cited here).
And another reason why we haven’t bought. One income is more than enough as a renter…
As the repairs get more complex, Buescher’s fees escalate. Granite counters, a reshingled roof, new wiring, they all make his cash register ring. ‘My job is to convince the client to spend more money to sell the house,’ he said. ‘But at this point, the banks aren’t willing, because the market hasn’t hit bottom.’”
Now here is a smart dude that is getting into the right business.
‘But at this point, the banks aren’t willing, because the market hasn’t hit bottom.’”
Ya right! What does this bufoon know. He’s only right in the middle of the storm. I’ll take my advice from some Harvard intellect who really knows the score!
SALTON SEA! You have to be kidding. As children, my father would take us to Salton sea for a camping outing. I hated that place with a passion. It was too hot to enjoy doing anything but stay in that rancid water. It has some beauty, but on a temporary basis. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to buy property there and commute to San Diego. I give up, there are some really stupid people in these United States.
Maybe they think there will be a brine shrimp boom?
We see here universal displeasure with the area. The shoeshine boy says don’t buy it.
and the entrepreneur in me is pondering.. brine shrimp? nah. but it’s gotta be good for something..
“it’s gotta be good for something.”
Let me amend that statement for you–
“it’s gotta be good for something, sometime.”
The locals have been predicting something positive happening around the Salton Sea area forever–seems to always be “20 years out”. I’m guessing unless there is some commercial use for environmentally impaired desert land (solar farm for Palm Springs? Nuclear Plant?), it’ll be nothing for the rest of my life.
the Salton Sea is an arm pit but cheap land is what the HB loves and has driven the conversion of ag land into shitboxes for the last 40 years.
I was out looking at a open house down the block from me that has been on the market with at least 3 different RE agents, so close to 18 months on the market. It is now listed at 535K was started at 690K, yes it is a flipper house, complete new kitchen, bambo floor, new roof and windows but the same model sold on my street last month for 395K. These folks are so fu**k but the RE agent is such a ass he believes it will sell for the asking price because Sonoma is different!
Bamboo floor? Must google that one!
On top of outrageous real estate prices, we in the US are being screwed in a lot of other ways. Michael Moore points out the obvious disaster with our health care, but consider this. French workers are only allowed to work 35 hours per week. And they must take 5 weeks paid vacation per year (most get 8 weeks). If for any reason they must work more than 35 hours they get even more time off. And this is the law.
Our corrupt slimeball corporations hate this. No wonder they always have their whore buddies in the media slamming France.
Housing is only one of many problems we face in the USA.
corporations are bad ?
even FRA voted this down so I bought the french ETF
socialism’s bad
Then I guess you must love what’s happening to America now. American socialism (in principle, but without the name) brought us the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. Unbridled capitalism is bringing on another gilded age…
Btw, the reason it’s called gilded is because there’s base metal underneath … or today, probably stucco.
Is that the same country that has 8%-10% unemployment? Just checking if we are talking about the same “France”.
If the US calculated its unemployment the same way the Europeans do the numbers would be a lot higher. For example, Europe does not have a huge illegal immigrant workforce that doesn’t show up in the statistics.
As well, the US’s gigantic prison population is not considered “unemployed” since they can’t look for work. Needless to say it costs the US taypayer a lot more to pay to keep a person in prison than for the French taypayer to pay for a person’s unemployment compensation.
France’s leftist proclivities have turned it into.. hmm.. i got it
The Salton Sea of Europe.
Not quite true on the prison costs - google “prison industries”. Someone in government is making a killing on what amounts to slave labor. I believe this is one of the big pushes for our war on drugs. This is another growing group competing for the new cheap labor market, this time right here in the US rather than China or elsewhere around the world.
corporations?
i dunno what you’re talking about.. the socialists thought a 35 hour work week would cure their unemployment troubles.. however, it did not. And if i recall the 35hr week was abolished in 2005(?)
anyway, when socialism kills an economy, simpleminded “fixes” like spreading what few jobs exist even thinner does absolutely no good.
Ya’know, we should take some time off from bashing France on this blog this week, since we’re coming up on Independence Day, and if it weren’t for Lafayette’s help in that war, we’d all be speaking English today.
We rolled through this town on the eastern side (I think) of Salton Sea on a motorcycle ride a couple years ago. Mecca. Actually thought i had lost track and was in a really bad part of Tijuana. Serious open-sewer squalor. Next to some big landfill out there. Thirsty, but did not stop…
Like WOW Kb is going to build 1500 sq ft homes for real families and sell them for a third or a quarter of the McMansion price….say under $150K
Where were these people hiding all these years?????????/
OK Guys…Salton Sea sounds really awful…why have so many of you been there…..!!!???
Bemused of San Diego
Selective bias. Those who have been there are inclined to comment. A whole lot of people read this blog, only a few comment.
Well I’ve been to Compton and Palmdale and Irvine and most of the other uninhabitable shitholes in California as well (no doubt because of my inquisitive mind) but feel no special compulsion to live in any of them.
Usually we are just passin’ through on the way to a better destination.
My Dad took me fishing there when I was a kid. I hated it and I’ve never been back.
I finished reading all this and am shaking my head. I am begining to think the realtor’s lies about location, location and location is becomming apperent. It seems that “location” in most cases can NOT justify the huge price difference. Was this true in the past where a “desirable” location cost only slightly more than some rural place?
I see crime ridden filth in CA(and FL) where a shack can cost $150-200k in south FL and twice that in south CA! Who the heck is gonna pay this money when you could leave CA or FL and somewhere like GA, TN, PA, etc $100k or even $50k gets you a nice house in a safe, low crime area?
Who’s singing the seventh inning stretch?
As a lona officer, I’m kind of liking the fact that the bubble is bursting because it forces a lot of the sub-prime criminals in my industry to look for new employment.
Mark
http://www.1866swiftsource.com