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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nextrade! who wrote (17640)	2/21/2004 9:51:29 PM
From: nextrade!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Credit Bubble Bulletin by Doug Noland prudentbear.com Issing v. Greenspan February 20, 2004 California Housing Bubble Watch: February 19 – San Francisco Chronicle (Kelly Zito): “The Bay Area real estate market chugged along in January, with sales posting a 15-year high for that month and year-over-year home prices jumping by about 12 percent… The median price for a single-family home in the nine counties hit $463,000 in January, up 11.6 percent from the $415,000 median last year, according to DataQuick… Prices for single-family houses in four counties -- San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Marin -- were above the half-million dollar mark. For the seventh month in a row, the sales tally was the highest for that month in at least 15 years... DataQuick won’t release information on February home sales for about four weeks. But agents in Santa Clara County say sales are rocketing. According to Richard Calhoun, owner of Creekside Realty in San Jose, about 429 homes have changed hands in the past week. That’s about 56 percent more than the weekly average a year ago. Calhoun said that new types of mortgages, as well as lenders’ willingness to allow buyers to devote more of their incomes to house payments, may be playing a role. He cited one client who is purchasing a San Jose condo with an interest- only loan... ‘The old rule that you spend 2.5 to 3 times your income (on a home) is clearly out the window,’ Calhoun said, noting that the purchase price of his client’s home is roughly 5.5 times her income… ‘It’s difficult for buyers right now,’ said Robin Kingsbury, an agent at Red Oak Realty in Berkeley, who added that the last four properties with which he’s been involved have sold for more than $100,000 above their respective asking prices. ‘Winning bidders are happy and sellers are happy.’” February 19 – Los Angles Times (Roger Vincent): “Ventura County led Southern California in year-over-year home price increases last month with a 26.8% jump to a median of $430,000 as the hot market kept pressure on prices. The overall increase for six Southern California counties was 21.2%, to a median of $343,000, according to a report released Wednesday by DataQuick Information Systems…DataQuick said San Diego County’s median home price rose 17.9% in January from a year earlier to $396,000. The Riverside County median — the point at which half the homes sold cost less and half more — rose 23% to $273,000. The median price in San Bernardino County rose 17.8% to $205,000… the median price in Los Angeles County went up 26.6% in January from a year earlier to $352,000.” February 18 – Los Angeles Times (Roger Vincent): “The median price of a previously owned home in Orange County hit $500,000 for the first time last month as property values continued their meteoric rise. Orange County is the first Southern California county to hit the half-million-dollar mark for resales, said analyst John Karevoll of DataQuick… The latest resale record reflected a 26.6% price jump from $395,000 in January 2003. …prices keep going up because ‘Orange County has more people who want to buy homes than there are for sale, (Karevoll) said. That means real estate agents like Alison McCormick of Strada Properties in Newport Beach are scrambling to find properties for their buyers. ‘There is not a lot on the market, and what’s there is going up and up in price.’ The median price of an Orange County condo climbed 27.5% to $325,000 in January… The overall number of homes sold fell 12.5%...which McCormick attributed to lack of inventory. ‘We are seeing a lot of panic in this market. People are buying things that they wouldn’t normally.’ The California Housing Bubble is running out of control.