January 30, 2008

Weekly News Round-Up

Tracking foreclosures seems to be the new game in town. Everywhere you look there is a new statistic. Yahoo Finance has a recap of last year with “Home Foreclosure Rate Soars in 2007.” CNN Money has a similar story, “Foreclosures up 75% in 2007.” Closer to home, BusinessWeek wrote “California Defaults Soar in 4Q.” No end in sight……

And as if the foreclosure issue is not enough doom and gloom for you, head over to Marketwatch, where Paul Farrell puts a real damper on things in “In America, land of the bubbles, the next pop will be the biggest.” Equating today’s woes with that of 1929, he puts an interesting spin on things, saying that America is subsisting on bubbles, which eventually burst. I’m not so sure I agree with him, but it makes for interesting reading.

The Brits get in on the action as well, predicting that the “US recession will dwarf dotcom crash.” Edmund Conway of the UK’s Telegraph tries to make Brits feel a bit better about their own situation by telling them that the US is in worse shape. Are we?

I’m not so sure that I’d want the job of cleaning up abandoned, foreclosed properties. People in dire straits do stupid, insane things. People forced from their homes often leave a wake of destruction. And some of these things are listed in “Cleanup Crews Often Can Tell Why Eviction Happened,” which has a few sad and horrific stories to tell. Yes, it’s Ohio, but California being what it is, probably is ten times worse.

….and now for a bit of Redfin News: The New York Times did an article on Monday, “Despite Housing Slide, Real Estate Sites Sell,” which featured Zillow, Trulia, Terabitz and Redfin. CEP Glenn Kelman got his mug at the top of the article, surrounded by Redfin For Sale signs. The article talks about the success of these online sites, despite the downturn in real estate.

Recent Sweet Digs Posts:
Alameda County: What’s Selling in the 700K Range
SF and Daly City: What Can You Buy for Less than 500K?
AdAge Rips Realtors a New One