Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Prices now down 50% from the peak

November 2008 numbers are out. We are now down 50% from the peak. The year-over-year decline is 40%; anyone who told you to buy last year was dead wrong and should be sued...look in the archives for the list of crooks.

Nov 2008 yoy:

Bakersfield -40.2%

24 comments:

Realestateslasher said...

WOW do you think we are going to vist the good old 70's prices ?

Anonymous said...

Bakersfieldbubble, you have done an admirable job with this blog.

One thing we should keep in mind is the fact that fiscal policy is going to also put downwards pressure on home prices. Taxes (income, sales, etc.) will go up--dramatically. California has to pay the lavish salaries of its socialist workforce and the health care, dentistry, food, housing, and legal bills for the millions of illegal aliens here.

The average middle class worker, in California, will be paying over half of his income in direct and indirect taxes:
Federal income,
Social Security,
Medicare tax,
Unemployment tax,
State Income tax (soon to exceed ten percent),
State Sales tax (will hit 10 percent soon),
DMV fees (remember when registering a car cost $350? Those days will return),
property tax,
gasoline tax,
all while having to work in a socialist (oops "progressive") climate that hates business.

What does he get for his efforts? He has to put his kids in private school so they won't get their teeth bashed in by the kids bred on welfare (his tax dollars at work), and he will cower inside his home at night, scared to venture outside where the illegal aliens will cut his throat for the sheer sport of it (his tax dollars also at work).

California is a socialist nightmare, and anyone who sticks around for it is either a parasite, or a sucker.

Which are you, dear reader?

Bakersfield Bubble said...

Real estateslaher - I sure hope we don't see 70's prices! Otherwise 99% of us will be underwater...



Anyonymous - I think we might all end up as suckers, including those of us who think we are informed as to what will happen...especially me :(
My only hope is that it is darkest before the dawn and not darkest before it goes pitch black.

Anonymous said...

its getting very close to where prices were in 1999 I see all the 150000 crap boxes in oildale are back in the 40s to 50s anybody that paid thoes prices knowing they wouldnt get more than 500$ mo rent was a fool. Merry Christmas from Missouri.

Bakonewbie said...

So why aren't areas like Olive Park, etc falling in line with the price drop? And why are people still paying $370k and more to live there as well as Brighton Estates?
Where will a 2600 sq ft house in one of these area bottom out? (not that I like Brighton, still not sure what you get for your $1200/year assoc fees plus it is still a little close to East Bako for my taste)

Anyone have any info or thoughts on Monterey Ranch? (balfanz) 1/2 acre lots are nice, those size lots made for nice communities down in OC, as there were so few. There is always Northwood Estate too, .25 acre lots and a gate. Still balfanz wants $420k for a 2840 sq ft in MR and $400k for a 2658 sq ft in NE. I like both the areas but worry about the number of empty lots. When will balfanz sell off (default?) land and what will be built out there in the years to come?

Bakersfield Bubble said...

"And why are people still paying $370k and more to live there as well as Brighton Estates?
Where will a 2600 sq ft house in one of these area bottom out? (not that I like Brighton, still not sure what you get for your $1200/year assoc fees plus it is still a little close to East Bako for my taste)"


Many of those homes in Brighton were selling for 700-900k (wjen the Crisp and Cole kids were driving up prices there)...the $370k price is back to where they were in 2003 when that developement opened. If Kern River Crude continues it crash ($21bbl now) look for prices to continue down

Anonymous said...

"still a little close to East Bako for my taste"

Are you referring to the Riverwalk aka Hart Park Dos?

Anonymous said...

Heck of a job shrub!!

Anonymous said...

B.O. will turn the economy around by 2010. The bottom will be in 2009 with positive growth in prices starting in the summer of 2010.

Taxing the rich is the only right thing to do. This and the Obama Administration's fastracking of sustainable energy will mean that by 2012, we'll decrease our dependence on all foreign oil.

By 2016 the increased use of green energy will mean that California will decrease our use of oil based products by 30%.

Green energy will become the new economy of California and we'll be seeing a rebound from today's bottom prices.

My advice is to buy in 2009. You can't lose.

Anonymous said...

My advice is to buy in 2009. You can't lose

You can't be serious. This recession is just starting. Before this thing is over prices will be down another 25% in Bako and another 40% in Cali. My advice is to rent until 2011.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

B.O. will turn the economy around by 2010. The bottom will be in 2009 with positive growth in prices starting in the summer of 2010.

============

Whoa, yet another victim of public school and too much socialism beamed into the eyeballs via liberal TV and media.

I love the phony economic predictions.

You MUST be a government employee, only a witless parasite could be this stupid and yet not starve to death.

Now, go back to whining about Global Warming...

Anonymous said...

Since we are in prediction mode, here is my prediction. With the best possible outcome in every possible way, recovery COULD be around 2010 as the guy who posted earlier. But what is the chance of that happening? The worst possible I see is we see the bottom around 2012-14 after ARM reset mess and take another 2-3 year to stablize. That would put earliest recovery to 2014-2017.

When Japan's real estate bubble popped it lasted something like 10 years with government interventions. US government appears to be doing same crappy job that Japanese gov did back then if not worse. So it might make a bit longer than 10 years. Assuming 2007 is the time when the bubble popped as people say, that would put the recovery date somewhere beyond 2017... I am hoping it would be something in between those 2 predictions but seeing how global the problems are, I am leaning toward recovery after 2017. Could be something like 2020. Man, that does sound pretty depressing... I really hope I am wrong though.

Anonymous said...

Bakersfield currently ranked as 9th worst market by Fortune/CNN:

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/106346/10-Worst-Real-Estate-Markets-for-2009

Anonymous said...

Direct Link:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0812/gallery.worst_markets.fortune/9.html

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm one of those people who saw what was coming down the pike (uh, 3x increase in home prices in 3-5 years? Hard to MISS the bubble here, unless you were punch-drunk on your perceived growing wealth!) So I sat on the side-lines until things leveled out, knowing revision to the mean is a beatch.

But even sitting on the sidelines doesn't mean you'd escape this mess, especially if you thought you could outsmart the market. I decided to learn the stock market AFTER it started it's fall, and was playing short against the market (way too late for the initial fall in 2007, but way too soon for the big drop, as I was playing short back in February/March 2008).

Turns out you can LOSE a a lot of money playing EITHER side of the market, as people were still delusional even earlier this year (when they thought Bear Stearns was a passing fad). It doesn't matter what you KNOW is wrong: if the market is going one direction, you'd be a fool to go the other way.

Long story short: I lost most of my down-payment for a house by trying to out-smart the stock market. I wanted to turn it into a cash payment for a house, but now am much worse off for it.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to be too bearish, as it's one thing to know WHAT to buy, but another to know WHEN to buy. I was right on the general direction, but missed the move(s).

Anonymous said...

FWIW, here's a good summary of the delusional and dim-witted view of laissez-faire capitalism that allowed Bush (and a Rand-inspired Greenspan) to get us into this mess:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?pagewanted=1&em

Anonymous said...

The New York Times, news that you can trust--yeah right, LOL!

1:42--The liberal media and the Democrats brought us the housing mess.

Houses for those who can't afford to own--that's what the marching orders were.

Bakersfield Bubble said...

"Houses for those who can't afford to own--that's what the marching orders were."


What does that have to do with the blowup in the CRE market? Or the explosion of the unregulated 500 trillion dollar derivatives market lead by the Credit Default Swaps (the ebola virus of financial assets)? Or the explosion of other securitized products (cc, auto loans, etc..)?

If you think this is only a problem because of housese to those who could not really afford them...then you have not been paying attention.

Anonymous said...

President Clinton deregulated the financial industry and it brought us all of those neat investment instruments that are now sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

What about that?

The biggest lie in this entire mess is that the MSM is NOT covering what the Democrats did and what part they played in the crash.

Just like how the MSM elected Obama by using the biggest propaganda campaign in human history.

Sarah Palin's daughter's fiance's mother is in the news (the mother was arrested on a drug charge).

Yet we don't know ANYTHING about our new President's drug use history of cocaine.

Hmm, I smell a rat here.

BTW, Barack is having problems adjusting to being the "President Elect". This guy won't be able to find the men's room at the White House.

Oh well, this current crash will go away once "The One" gets in office.

Bakersfield Bubble said...

I agree the Clinton crooks..Rubin, Summers, et al have just as much blame in this mess. I think the whole rotten system is corrupt. Just blaming one party is wrong.



That said...most of the issues occured in 2003-2007 (republicans had full control from Jan 2003 to Jan 2007). Issues - allowing the investment banks to lever up on an unlimited basis (2003), zero enforcement by the SEC, zero enforcement by the FBI, allowing the derivatives market to go from 50 trillion to 500 trillion, allowing Greenspan and the Fed to keep rates way too low for way too long with zero restrictions by banks on any lending, etc...

Anonymous said...

"...allowing Greenspan and the Fed to keep rates way too low for way too long...."

The Republicans controlled Greenspan? I didn't know that.

"Just blaming one party is wrong."

Then why are so many people blaming GW Bush?!

And this mess of a Ponzi scheme (yes PONZI scheme) that has crumbled was made possible by all of those people who started buying houses that they really couldn't afford. Without them, there would have been no real estate bubble since a bubble is dependent on having people enter AT THE BOTTOM.

The fact that the bottom is tanking first is proof of this.

The wider financial collapse shows the extent of the scheme's reach.

Anonymous said...

The Bush derangment just keeps coming. Sorry you can’t blame Billy for a deregulation law written by the guy McSame wanted to make Treasury Secretary. (Americans are whiners right)

Of course, if that isn’t enough for you, Greenspan himself has admitted that the trust in Repub laissez-faire/rand capitalism is the reason we are in this mess. To bad Greenspan and the rest of the Repub’s didn't learn from the Great Depression or the Savings and Loan mess. Of course maybe he did--the Faux news overlord and shrub cheerleader has already said that dramatic downturns are great times for him and his ilk!

Heck of a job shrub and shrub voters

Anonymous said...

Anyone defending Bush and the Republicans on this is fighting a worthless and illogical fight.

To use an analogy - Its as if the cat knocked over a candle and rather than putting out the fire Bush and the Republicans decided it was best to go to bed and let the unregulated fire put itself.

Anonymous said...

Barack Obama will turn the economy around by 2010.

Since the Democrats are now in control of the Congress and White House, we'll see the progessive agenda mend the fences here in America.

I expect that important social issues will also be resolved like immigration reform (a path to citizenship for the undocumented workers, especially here in California), comprehensive drug law and offender reform (wasting billions incarcerating non-violent minority young men doesn't do anything for these persecuted people), universal health insurance, and a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Plus Obama will reverse the Bush policy of ignoring Global Warming by taxing energy and getting America on a path to energy independence.

All of these policies will be brought out in the first 100 days.