Oh the Carnage!

Got a r/c car to chase teh kittehs!

Christmas 2011

There's lots to talk about soon. Recent convictions upheld for local real estate fraud. The multi-billion dollar punishment to be meted out next month to teach those uppity Californians not to give the State whatever it demands. New lows in home price indexes next month. But for now enjoy the holiday.

Slightly Inflated Figures

The NAR today... HEY! The writing is down here not up there.

Any way, the NAR today finally revised heir 2007-present used home sales figures to more closely resemble reality. The reality we've been blogging about for even longer than that.

As usual Calculated Risk has the delicious chart porn. That's "chart porn" stop looking up there. Digging deeper their new methodology is just their old methodology minus mistakes they found. Still useless as a measure.

What we need is a parallel certification process. Certified National Real Estate Professional Association. No political advocacy, no "Suzanne researched this," just a formal process of identifying professionals and an ethics reporting mechanism.

CalPERS = Naughty, Still Gets Presents

According to CalPERS:

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) today reported a 20.7 percent return on investments in preliminary estimates for the one-year period that ended June 30, 2011.

And the details:

As of June 30, 2011, the market value of CalPERS assets stood at approximately $237.5 billion. A year earlier, the fiscal year ended with $200.5 billion. Investment returns are based on compounded daily earnings over the year, including continuing member contributions and benefit payments, and don’t precisely correspond to one-year changes in market value.

And now for the fun part:
CalPERS’ value is down from its all-time peak of $247.7 billion on June 30, 2007 to $225.4 billion as of Sept. 8, 2011. That’s a decline of $22.3 billion, or 9 percent, in four years and three months. That includes employee contributions and state back-filling.

A tale of two FBs

Comparable busters. They aren't just for sales anymore. Neighborhoods that would not have imagined rental units in their midst now find them preferable to empty REOs.

Unfortunately the rental market has the same problem with wishing prices as still does the resale market for used houses.
3xxx-Avenida-De-Autlan

* $3,900/month
* Beds:5 Bed Baths:4 Bath House Size:3,770 Sq Ft Lot Size:0.18 Acres

A tad pricey but a safe neighborhood with an excellent school district. And hey, this is supposedly and $800k neighborhood on a golf course. There's one tiny problem:
2924-Avenida-De-Autlan

* $2,500/month
* Beds:4 Bed Baths:5 Bath House Size:3,531 Sq Ft Lot Size:0.19 Acres

Right around the corner. Ouch.

Time to Resume

The long wait is over.

The next phase of the great xcession is about to begin and someone needs to track it and let people comment.

The last phase started like this. Stutter stops in housing price increases. THe latest Dataquick report:
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California November Home Sales
The median price paid for a home last month was $244,000, up 1.7 percent from $240,000 in October, and down 4.3 percent from $255,000 for November a year ago.
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The breakdown in Southern California is even worse:
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Only San Bernardino saw a yoy uptick. The expensive counties are way down.

Spring '11b

Spring '11