Sac Bee: Sacramento region foreclosures nearly equal home sales in January

[El Pinko]

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/713187.html

Sacramento region foreclosures nearly equal home sales in January
By Jim Wasserman and Phillip Reese - [e-mail]
Last Updated 1:30 pm PST Thursday, February 14, 2008


In the most ominous indicator yet of the Sacramento region's struggling housing market, January saw nearly as many people lose their homes as buy them.

January's 1,815 closed escrows in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo and Yuba counties was only 33 more than the 1,782 foreclosures recorded in the same counties that month, according to statistics from La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla and Foreclosures.com. of Fair Oaks.

....

The nearly equal number of home sales and foreclosures stems from still-rising numbers of bank repossessions and what's typically one of the slowest months on the real estate sales calendar.

Still, the tallies reveal an unprecedented phenomenon in a region where sales and home values have been declining since summer 2005. Every business day during January in the region, an average of 85 people lost their homes to lenders, almost double the number of foreclosures from September, according to Foreclosures.com, a Web site for real estate investors.

[Warpy]

1. I can't watch the house porn shows on HGTV any more

because I keep seeing these nice young couples being shown palatial houses that no young couple I know could possibly afford without a lot of creative financing or a second job growing hydroponic pot in the basement.

I'd love to know the percentage of these people who have been foreclosed out of their homes.

No, wait a minute, I don't, too depressing. I'd rather have the kittens in your sig picture.

[mdmc]

2. kick

[dysfunctional press]

3. not every foreclosed house represents a family losing it's home...

like elsewhere a share of the foreclosures are probably would-have-been 'flippers' who will only be losing their downpayment and their credit rating.