The F-Bomb

As per usual the end of the month gives us a deluge of numbers to crunch and munch on.  Many of these numbers are dropping the F-bomb, and not in a good way.

The California Association of Realtors released their numbers for the month of January.  The news for us OCers – the percent change in price from January 2007 to January 2008 was down 11.6%. 

What accounts for these losses?  According to Bloomberg (which I happen to agree with) the difficulty in attaining mortgages and the huge influx of foreclosures is to account for a large portion of the continued downward trend.  Where does the market seem to be going?  Well, it’s most likely not up for right now.  They also report that we might see as many as 1 MILLION foreclosures on the market this year alone. 

And judging from the numbers (and the map) from Realty Trac, there are plenty to choose from. 

 Photo Courtesy of Realty Trac

As you can see from the map.  California has 35,000-55,000 homes in foreclosure.  This is actually a generous guess.  It turns out that 57,158 homes in California are in, “some state of foreclosure”.  The homes being sold in foreclosure (not to even mention the short sales) are only helping the falling home prices. 

Foreclosure:  the F-bomb:  one more factor in helping the local market implosion.