Sunday, March 18, 2007

"Down goes Frazier, Down goes Frazier!"

OK....I know I said I'd lighten up on poor beleaguered housing now that everyone agrees it's got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

But, I found this online and almost choked on my twinkies -- Contra Costa county is where i used to work (it is east of Oakland) and home to such bubblicious towns as "Walnut Creek" and some truly upscale communities ($3MM+)

I would hope that most of this activity is from the less desireable Contra Costa towns, but where do you think most of the people who don't work at Chevron Texaco are getting the cash to afford the overpriced homes in Walnut Creek? -- my guess -- directly and indirectly servicing all the nouveau house rich east bay citizenry

From Central Valley Business Times: http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=4599

(my emphasis added)

"Home foreclosures in the United States being reported by the media likely understate actual foreclosure sales activity, according to Foreclosure Radar, a Discovery Bay-based foreclosure listings and software company.

According to the company, February saw 4,171 foreclosures with a total loan value of $1.64 billion for distressed properties sold at auction in California. This dollar volume surpassed the prior record reached in the third quarter of 1996, and represents a 48 percent increase from December 2006, says the company which tracks actual foreclosure sales, not just initial listings.

“The foreclosure sale numbers, sometimes referred to as REO's reported by similar listing services do not reflect current foreclosure sales activity. Instead, they are based on a document called a Trustee's Deed that gets recorded with the county weeks after the sale. With the rapid changes in the foreclosure market, the delay in waiting for these documents to be recorded has resulted in actual foreclosure sales to be under reported by more than 300 percent,” he says.


“We’ve been tracking home, commercial, and bank foreclosures for years and the recent rise is alarming,” says Mr. O’Toole. “If you look at the data for Contra Costa County, for example, the number of foreclosures has increased by 865 percent in just one year and this is by no means the worst example in California.”

wow.
fuBarrio

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