Broderick Perkins / Realty Times

It’s a lot like dusty prospectors packing up and leaving a mother lode of gold that’s been tapped out.

The massive home building shortfall in California has sparked an exodus of homebuilders leaving regions that were once housing boom towns.

California home builders have long held that the state needs 250,000 new homes every year to keep homes affordable.

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Drops to 46.2 percent in first quarter — level not seen since end of WWII

Associated Press / MSNBC

NEW YORK - The equity Americans have in their most important asset — their homes — has dropped to its lowest level since the end of World War II.

Homeowners’ portion of equity slipped to 46.2 percent in the first quarter from a revised 47.5 percent in the previous quarter. That was the fifth quarter in a row below the 50 percent mark, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

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Mortgage bankers report hits grim a benchmark in first quarter, showing a record number of homes in jeopardy.

Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — More than one million homes are now in foreclosure, the highest rate ever recorded, according to a trade group which warned Thursday that number will continue to climb.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s first quarter report showed that a record 2.5% of all loans being serviced by its members are now in foreclosure, which works out to about 1.1 million homes. That’s up from the 2% of loans, or about 938,000 homes, that were in foreclosure at the end of 2007.

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CAR (California Association of Realtors)

The percentage of households that could afford to buy an entry-level home in California stood at 44 percent in the first quarter of 2008, compared with 26 percent for the same period a year ago, according to a report released by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.).

C.A.R.’s First-time Buyer Housing Affordability Index (FTB-HAI) measures the percentage of households that can afford to purchase an entry-level home in California. C.A.R. also reports first-time buyer indexes for regions and select counties within the state. The Index is the most fundamental measure of housing
well-being for first-time buyers in the state.
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Reuters / CNBC

A “credit recession” sparked by the U.S. housing market downturn and excesses in structured finance may last more than two years, and the financial sector will undergo “massive consolidation,” two leading Wall Street strategists said Wednesday.

The fallout from deteriorating subprime mortgages and the broader housing and credit crisis will eventually lead to a healthier market—but not until after a prolonged purging process, Jack Malvey, Lehman Brothers Holdings’s chief global fixed-income strategist, said in New York.

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JEANNINE AVERSA, AP / AOL Money

WASHINGTON (AP) - Home foreclosures and late payments set records over the first three months of the year and are expected to keep rising, stark signs of the housing crisis’ mounting damage to homeowners and the economy.

The latest snapshot of the mortgage market showed that the proportion of mortgages that fell into foreclosure soared to 0.99 percent in the January-through-March period. That surpassed the previous high of 0.83 percent over the last three months in 2007.

The report by the Mortgage Bankers Association also found that more homeowners slipped behind on their monthly payments.

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By Emmet Pierce / UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Nearly 50 San Diego County dwellings per day were lost to foreclosure in April, as the tally of mortgage failures rose 169 percent above last year, DataQuick Information Systems reported yesterday.

Buckling under the weight of risky adjustable-rate loans, many borrowers are giving up on ever bringing their debt current.

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Caroline Baum / Bloomberg.com

Once upon a time, there lived a King who granted each subject enough money to make his home his castle.

Everyone was content. The castles created vast riches throughout the land.

Alas, the King had large armies to support, and the royal coffers had run dry. So he levied a tax on each household. And there was much misery throughout the land. The people rose up in protest. The King and his ministers knew not what to do.

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Dan Levy / Bloomberg

California luxury home prices fell for the second consecutive quarter as banks required higher credit scores and down payments, reducing the number of potential buyers in the state’s wealthiest communities.

The average price of a luxury home in the San Francisco Bay Area declined 0.8 percent from the previous three months to $3 million, according to a survey by First Republic Bank, a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co. Los Angeles prices dropped 2.2 percent to $2.35 million and San Diego prices fell 2.2 percent to $2.06 million.

“Values of luxury homes in California have declined slightly in price after many years of strong appreciation,'’ Katherine August-deWilde, president of San Francisco-based First Republic Bank, said in a statement.

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Dan Levy / Bloomberg

U.S. foreclosure filings climbed 65 percent and bank seizures more than doubled in April from a year earlier as mortgage industry efforts to modify loans fell short.

More than 243,300 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, began in January 2005. One in every 519 households received a filing and Nevada, California and Florida had the highest rates. Filings rose 4 percent from March.

The worst housing slump since the Great Depression may push the U.S. economy into a recession. Falling home prices, which dropped the most in 29 years in the first quarter, are making it tougher for homeowners to refinance, and voluntary programs to change loan terms for at-risk borrowers haven’t helped enough people, said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates in Washington.
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