RE

133 and 15

Brookings Institute Unemployment List

Check out this list. We're at about 8.1 percent unemployment.

Brookings Institute Housing Price Decline pdf File

Check out the following link for the worst housing price declines. There is an associated map, but the problem areas (that have seen the worst price declines) are metro areas south and east of here. We're down about 2.3 percent in the last year.

http://www.brookings.edu/%7e/media/Files/Programs/Metro/metro_monitor/metro_ranks/housing_price_change_year_ranking_table.pdf

Real Estate

136 and 17.

So I was wrong last summer, when we had similar numbers, and suggested that we would see a large increase in both existing and FCs. 

I'm still wondering about the hidden inventory that could emerge when the market improves, plus I'm hearing a lot about green shoots and things not getting any worse. Could we be at the bottom? What I am reading suggests that the Alt-A loans (not technically subprime; these are the liar loans and no-doc mortgages) are in the middle of the recast season when they are adjusted after a few years of low interest rates to Prime plus whatever number of points is specified in the mortgage paperwork. With all the developments in Oxford--especially the ones with half acre or smaller lots that came online two or three years ago--I'd figure that many of those buyers got funky loans like Alt-As, which for the record were the kinds of loans given to people who believed they could refinance or sell and move up in a few years--both of which are difficult to say the least. 

Well check out my Foreclosure Cleanout of Oxford blog or leave a comment here if you are interested in having a foreclosed home cleaned out. 

Real Estate This Week

138 and 19. Also, quite unexpectedly, I was driving by Briarcroft and saw a huge dumpster in the driveway with a guy off-loading lots of household stuff into it. I figure that means the place is going to be under the maintenance of the bank that now owns it. Let's hope, for the neighbors' sake, that the bank gets the lawn mowed since it must be almost three feet high.