Weekly News Round-Up

Today, I’ve upped the caffeine to bring you the most current news from DataQuick (yesterday’s was a day late and a dollar short, so to speak). DQ’s monthly report was released and the headline is a mix of good and bad news: “Bay Area home sales climb above last year; median price falls hard.” Home sales appear to be hitting their stride, making July the big winner over previous months of 2008. July is traditionally a month with big sales, as people like to make their moves in the summertime when the kids are out of school and it is less disruptive (not to mention less rainy). DQ reported a total of 7,586 new and resale houses and condos sold across the nine- county Bay Area in July, up 5.7% from June and up 2.2 % from July 2007. That ought to make the real estate agents happy! As in June, many of those sales came from foreclosed homes. In fact, 33% of all the homes sold in the 9-county area were foreclosures, with the low and high rates again being in SF (4.5%–up from 3.5% last month) and Solano County (65.9%–up from 57.7% last month).

Over at Socketsite, they have posted sales information for just SF and report that sales are up 8% year over year. Looking purely at their chart, you can see the relative stability of the SF market when it comes to median sales price. While there have been highs (May 07 topping $800k) and lows (January 04 at $541k), overall prices have held on and are currently averaging $749,000. There is a more manic blue line that tracks sales volume, with a huge drop in January of this year. Volume is up over January 04, 06 and 07, with only July 2005 hitting a higher note. There is also a more in-depth commentary available.

There’s some new real estate/mortgage lingo to learn, according The New York Times. Sub sub-prime, exploding ARM, jingle mail, and liar’s loans, are just a few of the new terms Jack Rosenthal reports on in his story “No Docs.” He also references the website Implode-O-Meter that tracks “the housing finance breakdown: a saga of corruption, hypocrisy and government complicity.” Too much fun…..

On Monday’s Nightly Business Report there was a snippet by Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at Brookings and former vice chair at the Federal Reserve. She makes the argument that the current mortgage interest tax deduction weighs in favor of the rich, and suggests that a tax credit be given instead. I promise I have had my coffee, but the economics of this was not computing in my brain. Given the brilliant commentary that has come from our readers over complex financial and credit issues, I am hoping that someone can enlighten me (and our other readers) as to the wisdom of this. I’m neither rich nor poor, but would hate to see the deduction go by the wayside. Although I do know that some forces have been trying to get it changed for a while now. Any insight?

Also a big shout out to the newest members of our blogroll:

• Playborhood: This is a great site dedicated to finding family friendly neighborhoods and helping your child enjoy more of life and play. Writers include the Chief Play Officer, Minister of Roaming Around, Director of Hopscotch, and the Director of Horseshoes. Fun names aside, this blog does a good job of reminding us what is important in life…our kids.
• Street Advisor: This is a fairly new site whose goal is to allow residents to voice opinions about their streets, including the good points (well-manicured yards, no litter, postman always rings twice) and the bad (noisy neighborhood, teenage hooligans, and regular cop cruisings). Log in and add your two cents.
• Walkscore: Gives you the lowdown on how accessible your neighborhood is to parks, shopping, schools, transportation, restaurants. If you want to use your car less, or do without one completely, it is essential that your area have a good walkability factor. Type in your address and find out how your neighborhood ranks.