Home Front

Did you buy the "Proud Mary" or "Stuck in Lodi" singles at Woolworths in the 1970s or go to the mall and buy the whole Credence Clearwater Revival album? Go to a CCR concert?

 Here's what you helped pay for at Lake Tahoe. It's a house built by band drummer Doug Clifford. He built it in 1980 and raised his three kids there, according to listing agent Chase International. He later sold it to the party that is selling it now. They say it still has the old music studio.

It's near Incline Village and listed for $5.7 million. Maybe YOU can buy it.

Just when you think you've heard everything here is a report from Radio Netherlands about the Dutch buying foreclosed homes in Florida. The houses are cheap, the Euro is strong. What the heck, let's get a house in Florida.

"The collapse of the housing market has led to record numbers of foreclosures across the United States this year. One of the worst hit regions of the country is central Florida, where three out of four houses now on the market are being sold by banks. But with the economy in such bad shape , who is buying these houses? Middle class Dutch families, for one. Prices have hit rock bottom, and the euro is strong compared to the dollar."

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Has anyone heard a California version of this?

 

 

This has nothing to do with Sacramento, but the question would strike fear into any homeowner or renter: What should you grab if a hurricane is coming and you have to leave home?

The Mortgage Bankers Association offered this advice to people on the Gulf Coast facing down Gustav.

Take the following mortgage and financial related documents and items with you when you evacuate:  
- Original home loan agreement
- Home loan refinance agreements
- Second lien agreements (home equity loans, second mortgage, etc.)
- Most recent mortgage, bank and investment statements
- Checkbook
- List of insurance policies
- List of financial account numbers
- List of debt obligations, due dates, and contact information
- First two pages of previous year's federal and state income tax returns
- Back-up copies of computerized financial records
- Keys to safe deposit box

Write down the contact number for your mortgage servicer.  This is the company to which you make your mortgage payments.  In the past, loan servicers have offered extended grace periods and postponed foreclosure actions in the event of regional or national disasters. 

 

In addition, servicers often will assist borrowers in making contact with their hazard and flood insurance companies. If your home is damaged in the storm or your income is affected due to loss of employment, you should call your servicer to inquire about this type of help. 

 

Keep extra cash on hand.  Automatic teller machines (ATMs) and other banking operations may be interrupted.

 

From Home Front, we offer the final word: Good Luck.

Almost everyone in real estate and beyond has come to know the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter during this very trying time of the housing crisis.

Now comes the Home Builder Implode-O-Meter.

I looked at the ailing list - and it's nearly every big builder in Sacramento.

 

Utah-based Woodside Homes is the newest capital-area builder headed toward Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The firm ranks 15th among Sacramento-area builders for its 77 sales so far this year. That's from Hanley Wood Market Intelligence.

 Woodside has eight projects in Elk Grove, Sacramento, Rancho Cordova and Marysville. The Sacramento division's project manager Brian Cuttings said today, "We are definitely still here and definitely still operating."
 
He referred to the the company's new spokeswoman, Jennifer Mercer, who sent the following statement:

"Woodside will continue to operate in the normal course of business up to, and beyond September 16. All employee wage and benefit programs will continue uninterrupted as will customer programs. Additionally, the company has been proactive with its subcontractors updating them daily as to the status of these proceedings. Transparency to our employees,
customer, and subcontractors and vendors is a priority as Woodside considers them partners."

We'll have a story in tomorrow's Bee. In meantime here is a report from Big Builder Magazine.

Woodside made news in The Sacramento Bee last April fora huge deal with SMUD to build almost 1,500 solar-powered homes in Rancho Cordova by 2012. Both parties aren't sure at the moment what will happen now.

 Image: Woodside Homes

Yesterday I saw a lot of language like "glimmer of hope" and "severity could be waning" in a national story by the AP on the housing market.

 The AP quoted Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, saying, "The bottom of the housing downturn is coming into view."

I had to wonder if Zandi meant that's the case nationally. What about California, and this part of the state specifically?

I e-mailed him that question. He wrote back with this:

"We are at the beginning of the end of the Sacramento housing crash.
There are more house price declines to come, but the worst of the
freefall in prices is at hand. Another 5% to 10% decline in house prices
will restore housing affordability and coax first-time homebuyers back
into the market. There remain some serious threats to the outlook,
including the ongoing credit crunch and weak job market, but with a bit
of luck, including stable oil prices, and good policymaking, the
Sacramento housing market will find its footing by this time next year
and prices will resume rising again early in the next decade.

"P.S. I'm less optimistic about the rest of the Central Valley,
particularly around Stockton, Merced and Modesto.  Prices will like fall
another 10% to 15% through the end of next year, and won't rise in
earnest until 2011-12."

Zandi is author of "Financial Shock." It's a good book and one of the first big chronicles of the U.S housing and credit collapse.

Image: pbs.com

Home Front isn't making a political statement here, but a Sacramento group that provides housing for homeless military veterans is asking for some help. 
Let's let Cottage Housing explain:

To the Friends of Cottage Housing Inc.:
We are pleased to announce that Cottage Housing Inc. has been selected to receive funding for its services to the element of the homeless population who are military veterans.
YOU can help determine the size if this grant award.

Since this funding amount is based on how many people go to the following website and vote for ours among the three worthy agencies selected under Round 2 of the "Promised Kept Veterans Charity Challenge", your vote will make the difference between whether we receive $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000.

Because the voting period is only over the next several days, I am writing to ask you to take a minute RIGHT NOW go to this following website address to express your support for our award-winning homeless supportive housing programs by voting for our agency to receive the top funding prize.

www.charliebrownforcongress.org/poll.php

It would also be a great help if you forward this message to your friends or business associates and asked them to do likewise.

This opportunity is made possible by a unique political campaign strategy in which Lt. Colonel Charlie Brown is setting aside 5% of the funds raised for his congressional campaign to directly fund services for U.S. military veterans.
 
As a non-profit agency we take no position on partisan political campaigns, but we have about 15,000 reasons to call your attention to this creative way of generating support for services for those who need them most.

This honor is the fruitful result of our collaboration with our program's participants, our project development/property management partner - Mercy Housing California - and many allies in the community. We thank them again (and again!) for their support.

It's often the little things than make a big difference, but rarely do any of us have the opportunity to so much by doing so little.

Please take a moment to register your vote for Cottage Housing Inc., which will help us continue to help those who are helping themselves - and each other - to make the transition from the streets to self-sufficiency.

Want to know more about Cottage Housing? Check this link:
www.cottagehousing.org




  

 This may be more than you could possibly want to know about housing prices, but here is the new second quarter 2008 report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

 This is the national gold standard for measuring home prices. It reflects the same homes sold over time rather than the median, which lately tends to reflect the lowest end of the market activity with foreclosure properties.
 
A couple of highlights: Many Central Valley housing markets still rank highest nationally for price depreciation over the past year.  The Sacramento market - El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo, ranked 14th.

 The Yuba City market - Yuba and Sutter counties  - ranks 16th nationally for declines.

 Note, too, the five-year gains showed at right hand of the chart. That's how much house price  appreciation still exists after five years - and all this price erosion of late. 
 
                                           Losses in last year               Five-year price appreciation
 Merced, CA                       -34.52%                                           8.57%
Stockton, CA                      -31.68%                                           9.54%
Modesto, CA                       -28.53%                                           15.15%

Salinas, CA                         -23.76%                                              24.21%
Vallejo-Fairfield                     -22.98%                                          17.63%
Riverside-San Bernardino      -22.95%                                              47.23%

Naples-Marco Island, FL        -22.06%                                              45.2%
Port St. Lucie, FL                 -21.95%                                               33.58%
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL     -20.75%                                              37.49%

Bakersfield                            -18.83%                                             61.58%
Fort Lauderdale, FL               -18.11%                                               49.87%
Fresno, CA                           -17.73%                                               47.50%

Bradenton-Sarasota, FL          -17.72%                                              37.80%
Sacramento-Roseville         -17.68%                                               22.07%
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV          -17.67                                              49.56%
Yuba City                              -17.52%                                              29.45%

Home Front brought you a couple looks in June at a project between the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and area home builder Robert Walter to build one of the nation's most energy efficient homes in Folsom.

 We got a lot of reader interest in that. Here now is SMUD's House of the Future Website with new details and much more about the house. It just went online.

Tours will be offered of the house in early October, SMUD says.

 Hard times in the home building business keep taking their toll.
 
Last week we got an e-mail from from a business inside the Beazer Homes' office building on Douglas Blvd. in Roseville. The question: Where did Beazer go? The builder had disapeared.

I called Kathryn Boyce of Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, who said the Atlanta builder has moved to smaller space on Roseville Parkway. With so many fewer staffers in this greatly-cooled market they didn't need the big building anymore. The office is being run now out of Southern California, she said.

 Boyce also noted that the industry is buzzing about more downsizing at KB Home offices in Natomas. She said the builder is down to about 15-20 employees, down from about 60.
 
Beazer is ranked second in the region for sales the first half of 2008 - at 278.
KB of Los Angeles is third with 182 sales, according to Hanley Wood statistics.
Centex of Dallas still rules with 364 sales.

It's easy to see why they are downsizing: Builders in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties started just 3,523 units through July. The same time last year they started 5,845, according to the Construction Industry Research Board.

A record 40 percent plunge in median sales prices across the past year in California sparked
 another big 43 percent gain in home sales in July. That's above the same time last year.
 
 The news is just in from the California Association of Realtors.

The sales rush - the fourth straight month in which sales have been higher than a year earlier - pushed months of inventory across the state to 6.7 months. In  July 2007, it was 10 months.

Most of the sales are in inland Califrornia where foreclosures and bank-owned homes are abundant.

Check out the release for lots of regional details. Image: CNN.com

New York Times Photo/Jim Wilson

The New York Times paid a visit to Merced and chronicled today the harsh life being endured there in this time of foreclosures and stress.

  I passed through the city this afternoon on the way to a visit in Fresno. On the west side of Freeway 99 I saw all the evidence: unfinished subdivisions and bare dirt waiting for the next boom. It's worse east of the freeway out in Bellevue Ranch and other subdivisions where the hammering has come to almost a total standstill and the lives of quiet desperation go on.

These days, Sacramento always likes to say we have it bad, but it could be worse: We could be Stockton. I imagine in Stockton they say it could be worse: we could be Merced.

Check out the story. You'll see what it's like when there's nowhere else that makes you feel like it could be worse.

Well, maybe Florida......

 

 

This is the first I've heard of the real estate magazine, "The Real Deal." But its people sent an email touting their August feature on the Sacramento region. In addition to New York real estate news they do a national report every month.

 That would be us.

The story is titled, appropriately, "Sacramento Gets the Worst of It."

"There are so many homes on my block that are owned by the bank, that I can't compete with the prices," she said. "I can't even come close to making the house payments. I think I'll be moving in with family and starting from scratch."

Photo: courtesy of The Real Deal


  

And another local mortgage default and foreclosure workshop for borrowers having trouble with their mortgages. This one, Wednesday, Aug. 27, is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.

The aim: to help borrowers keep their homes.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently announced a $200 million state program to help first-time buyers buy foreclosures piling up in battered counties like San Joaquin and Stanislaus, Sacramento didn't make the list.

Now the list has been expanded, as this news release from the California Housing Finance Agency (the state's affordable housing bank known as CalHFA) explains.

 Statewide, this will help up to 1,000 buyers with below-market loans, which is a drop in the bucket. But it's here now. Local first-time buyers might find it gives them an edge. The news release explains how to learn more.

Checking the Housing Wire this morning I came across this story that talks about first-time buyers still having bubble-era expectations of what their first house should be.

 In short: they want more than they can afford. Sound familiar?

Image: blogs.smh.com

 

This just arrived from Sen. Mike Machado's office in the state Capitol, announcing passage of his SB 1055. 

The bill gives state tax relief to Californians who do a short sale (sell for less than they owe on the house) or get a deal from the lender that forgives part of the mortgage.

This bill is a California state tax version of what Congress passed late last year, a bill signed quickly by President Bush.

 Usually, federal and state taxing agencies consider forgiven debt as additional income and tax it accordingly. (in slang it's called being "1099'd"). These new bills let taxpayers off the hook, at least temporarily until the housing crisis lets up.

Machado's bill is on its way to the governor's desk for signing or veto.

Machado is a democrat from San Joaquin County, heart of the housing crisis and foreclosure capital of the world. He also chairs the state Senate finance, banking and insurance committee.

 

The nation's home builders were quick to put up a Web site about the new $7,500 home buyer tax credit in the new housing bill passed by Congress last month and signed by President Bush.

 Home Front wrote about it recently, but here is a guide ,as well, from the National Association of Home Builders.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency just released this five-page second quarter 2008 Sacramento Foreclosure Tracking Report. Lots of great neighborhood stats here you might not have seen before, including notices of default and foreclosures by city and neighborhood.

 A couple of samples: "The highest concentration of foreclosure filings continue to occur in the lower-income areas of the county, including Meadowview, Parkway, North Highlands/Foothill Farms, Oak Park, unincorporated South Sacramento and the lower-income areas of North Sacramento (including Del Paso Heights, Parker Homes etc.)"

Photo courtesy of BusinessWeek

....just arrived in the office on this August day of pleasant Northern California weather and am posting today's final and updated version of the story on July sales.

Here, too, is Dataquick's posting yesterday on July home sales in Southern California.

That huge Los Angeles-San Diego-Inland Empire region posted its first year-over-year gains since 2005.

And so did the six-county Bay Area from San Jose to Santa Rosa to Solano County just to the west of us: the first year-over-year gains since early 2005.

  Finally, we've just gotten DataQuick's Sacramento-area ZIP Code chart chart for the Sacramento region.

Photo: Courtesy of socketsite.com.

DataQuick information is courtesy of www.dataquick.com and www.dqnews.com

This investigation story has been brewing for about a year in Nevada County. I've been hearing about it from time to time. The Grass Valley Union's Laura Brown has an update today. Interesting.

 

 Here is an online first version of the July sales story. Apologies for the delay. We've had computer system problems. More to come in the final version.

Same pattern: sales up and prices down. Here is an earlybird look at July housing numbers.

 We'll post them when we get them. All expectations based on reports released last week are for a fourth month of year-over-year sales gains.

In an editorial published this morning, The Sacramento Bee's editorial page calls on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature to pass a package of bills to better protect people taking out mortgages and make lenders more accountable. It also sounds a warning about a new wave of anticipated foreclosures starting next spring when the Option ARM loans start defaulting.