Saturday, October 20, 2007

Here's to Your Depreciating Pied-à-Terre



4 comments:

see me said...

If I may paraphrase the Great Mayor Dinkins of NYC what a "gorgeous mosaic" ...

Ms Hawks said...

Great collage! The lemming story is apocryphal, but the cartoon is funny.

Here’s my latest stats on Bay Area SFR’s under 500K, those notorious “starter homes,” from pre-Subprime Woes Hit the Bigtime News (July '07) to now (Oct '07).

Number/Percentage Increase of SFRs listed on Ziprealty under 500k, July ‘07 to to Oct ‘07, by County

S. Clara - 67/1.65% to 235/4.85%
Santa Cruz -110/9.8% to 148/13%
San. Fran - 9/1.8% to 28//4%
San Mateo - 23/1.36% to 57/2.78%
Marin - 3/.46% to 12/1.57%
Napa - 175/19.5% to 207/22.6%
Sonoma -812/31.75% to 1082/40.19%
Alameda - 1356/25.7% to 1918/34%
Contra Costa -2983/43.25% to 3679/52.1%

Now, compare the Below 500k SFR numbers taken from Zip a year ago, Oct 4th, ‘06 to now:

Santa Cruz Co. –9/.67% to 148/13%
San Mateo– 9/.58 to 57/2.78%
Santa Clara Co. – 16/.4% to 148/13%
Sonoma Co. – 577/ 22.4% to 1082/40.19%

Santa Clara seems notable in the increase of decreasing prices.

While percentages for Marin still seem abysmally low, consider that in Oct '06, there were NO SFR’s listed under 600k. Now there are 52, or nearly 7% of the total SFR’s listed.

Across all counties, percentages of homes listed under 500k are rising. While there is sometimes a fluctuation in inventory, the percentage of half-million dollar “starters” (which, perhaps, should now be referred to as “enders,” as in, “I’ve just screwed myself by buying one, and ended my hope for sustainable home ownership for nearly a decade...”

BTW, thank you Marinite for clueing me to the housing bubble. Your blog and links to others educated me enough to land a rather lengthy assignment for the Monterey County Weekly on the unaffordability of Monterey County homes (Salinas in particular, NAHB’s least affordable place in the nation with population under 500k) and the outlook for firstime buyers. I had great fun chatting with the Pres of Monterey Co. Assn of Realtors, various loan agents, etc..

Marinite said...

BTW, thank you Marinite for clueing me to the housing bubble.

And thank you for the corroboratory work you do and sharing it with us.

That invite (to be an admin here) is still open.

If you'd like to cross-link some of your articles, just let me know and I would be happy to.

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