Housing Bubble News

Sales and prices of homes in the San Francisco Bay area appear to be stabilizing, with fewer foreclosures and more activity in pricier areas than a year ago, a tracking firm said Thursday. San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said the median price for a home in the Bay area last month was $387,000, down slightly from October but up 10.6 percent from $350,000 in November 2008. Sales also were up. A total of 6,878 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the nine-county Bay area last month, up 19.5 percent from 5,756 sales in November 2008. DataQuick's survey covered Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, ... Read Full Story

Posted by Jim Minkey on October 21st, 2008 Since September 15, when Lehman went belly up and AIG got bailed out and the stock market started it’s decent, there have been 15 properties sell in Foster City. I personally know of 4 properties in Belmont and San Carlos that had multiple offers and went over asking in the last two weeks. We’ll see how Foster City does with these recent sales. If all of these homes are selling now, in these circumstances, and some are even getting overbids that certainly would argue against any 25% reductions in values around here. We’ll see. I saw ... Read Full Story

Now may be the time to go ahead and sell your timeshare . If you are not using your timeshare it will quickly become an unused luxury you’d be better off without. Having said that, if you want to keep your timeshare but are falling behind on the loan payments, try to work with the lending institution that made you the loan before it is in danger of foreclosure. Your loan is one that is considered “secured” with the timeshare deed – and is worth salvaging from the loan writers’ perspective. Read Full Story

Power Outages Plague Oahu ; Airport Faces Problems Many residents on Oahu felt the earthquake off the Big Island on Sunday. The biggest problem was a power outage. The outage affected the entire island shortly after the earthquake. Many areas were still without power 11p.m. Hawaiian Electric Co. reported that about 147,000 customers out of 291,000 had power restored. The generators went off line after the quake because of the way the system is set up, according to HECO spokesman Jose Dizon. The Honolulu International Airport got its power back at about 6 p.m. Airport officials are working on getting the main airport generator ... Read Full Story

Obama administration had issued new guidelines for the foreclosure prevention program, which addresses the issue on how to deal with borrowers with second mortgages and equity loans. Reports from Credit Suisse Group show that more than 50% of those borrowers have opted for a second mortgage. [...] Read Full Story