Jan. 31, 2010

I’m holding an Open House today from 1-5 pm today. If you’re in the area you’ll have to stop by and say hello. The address is

526 N. Whisman Rd. Mountain View, Calif.

It’s a great house and Mountain View is an extremely popular area being the home of Google and so many other “techie” companies. This home is close to freeways and shopping, was completely remodeled just 5 short years ago, and is a true delight. To see pictures, etc. go to http://www.WhismanHomeForSale.weebly.com

The numbers are out for December and all of 2009 now. While they are saying the job market looks better, the numbers still aren’t good. Personally, I think they’re a lot worse than they show. The fact that they don’t even count the people still out of work, but whose unemployment benefits have run out and they are no longer on the rolls, to me is very deceiving. The economy shed 85,000 jobs last month and the Unemployment Rate failed to dip below 10%. The one bright spot is that because of these numbers, mortgage rates continue to decline slightly, or at least stay at current levels.

As far as seeing the end of the housing crisis, there were a total of 3,957,643 foreclosure filings, which includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions. A total of 632,573 California properties received a foreclosure filing in 2009, the nation’s largest state foreclosure activity total. This was an increase of nearly 21 percent from 2008 and was the most for any state in 2009. After four straight month-over-month declines, California foreclosure activity in December increased nearly 9 percent from the November total, while the state’s fourth quarter foreclosure activity was still down 17 percent from the previous quarter.

I don’t look for these numbers to drop much in 2010. We’re actually due for another mortgage adjustment that will send the numbers to a new high for this year, and it’s not just “bum” loans and “bum” people getting caught up in the housing crash any more. Prime borrowers with loans thought to be secure are defaulting now, and have been. No matter what the media tries to have us believe, one of the worst housing market crashes in history is not going to be over ‘tomorrow’.