[Hydroshock]

RE has already gone down 20% in many parts of CA.

[expat_panama]

The trend is going in the direction of more foreclosures....   ...watching your home value drop and still having to pay triple the property taxes of your neighbors who've bought in the 90s...   ...Foreclosures are going up every month. Soon to reach log jam proportions.

I like getting upset as much as the next guy, but somebody's going to have to tell me just what it is that's making the world end this week.  

What we've got here are ain't-it-awful news stories coming out of California (so?) while nationwide the average homeowner has been seeing mortgage debt falling as a percentage of home value.  For me to be able to say that average Americans have "overextended their credit" I'd have to either love slandering Americans or hate studying them.

Cherry picked bad news factoids may be a staple for the DBM, but for serious business decisions we need serious data plots for the nationwide trend for foreclosures --which is down, along with other forms of consumer credit delinquencies.

[pfony1]

You said,

"RE has already gone down 20% in many parts of CA."

I gather that you are not aware that there is an important difference between "sales rate" and "sales price".

I hope this report, published by the C.A.R. will help clear that up for you:

"Tuesday, July 25, 2006

C.A.R. reports median price of a home in California at $575,800 in June, up 6.2 percent from year ago; sales decrease 26.3 percent..."

In other words, although the NUMBER of home sales in CA has declined, median home PRICES continue to rise.

IMHO, a person does not help his credibility by consistently getting his "facts" wrong.