patrick.net

Interesting things popping up over here too:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/rew/

"But if I delighted in seeing the pain and suffering of other people" (who took pride in telling us how fucking stupid we were for not knowing real estate always goes up) "then I’d be twisted and sick."

e he e he he he e he he he he he he he ........

twisted and sick bay-bee, you got me....

WTF...does everything revolve around the Bay area? Got Milk?

Hello...even Wisconsin is in a slide.

Oh, BTW, how is California handling the fires and water shorage: "Lets run a pipeline from the Great Lakes".

Yeah...That will happen.

No...wait...let's move to Oregon!!

The center of the universe...California. NOT.

OH...but our life is soooooooooooooo good here...yeah, tell that to Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee.

California cracks me up!! You actually think your real estate is worth more; even with less resources. Sigh.

Keep thinking about the water...the great Bay area...It's all local when it comes to RE.

Will not deny the lifestyle...but at what price?

Harmony...Leigh

WTF…does everything revolve around the Bay area?

Isn't the core focus of this blog the Bay Area housing bubble? It has been for the 2+ years since I've been authoring here.

Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac will raise the limits on the value of mortgage they can purchase. Thereby redefining what constitutes a Jumbo Loan.

What we have is a attempt to stealthily bail out those heading for trouble.

They can raise the limit for Jumbo's, but it doesn't get away from the fact that if people have to document their income, they can't afford a Jumbo - me included :-(

All I can hope is that house prices drop - and by a lot.

Randy - was it you who blogged that you though house prices in the BA would drop 40-50% or so? Do you still think that likely?

Claire

I blogged that prices will fall by 40%-50% in real terms in non-prime areas of the BA.

I'm used Redwood City as my example, where a home I bought in 1996 for $365K peaked at nearly $1.2mm. This despite the fact no improvements had been done, the schools in RWC are a war zone, lots of RWC is very undesirable, and most of those inhabiting "neoprime" RWC are dual-income middle management types.

I think Woodside, Atherton, Belvedere, Hillsborough, etc. are measured on a whole different scale. I think they corrected a while ago (actually I pretty much know this from a good friend who works for the agency that sells that kind of stuff).

I think accessible-prime areas like Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Anselmo, Saratoga The Marina, etc. will fall much less than 40-50%. Maybe half that. Already the Tam Valley part of Mill Valley is down at least 10%, and I know that most sales going through in the Marina in SF are off by closer to 15% of peak asking.

Randy H - thanks for the reply, we are located in the Mountain View/Los Altos area, and the prices here are depressing. If they don't correct much in the next two years I guess we'll be relocating. Still even a 20% correction would be significant, in that that is effectively everyone's deposit lost on the seller's side - assuming that they actually put 20% down. And for us, by not buying we will not have lost it either.