"No Sign of a Turnaround"

From the Merced Sun-Star:

Howard Jarvis would be turning cartwheels down Main Street. About 6,500 Merced County property owners will receive tax breaks this year — 65 times as many as last year — because their real estate values have fallen.
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[County Assessor Kent] Christensen said most of the reductions were made on single-family homes bought after December 2004. The average affected property dropped in value by about $50,000, he said.
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Scott Oliver, president of the Merced County Association of Realtors, said the reductions show Merced's housing market is now "normalizing" in the wake of the 2005 boom. "When you bought a home for $600,000 in 2005 and now all the homes around it are selling for $450,000, obviously there needs to be that adjustment," he said. "This is a sign that things are getting back to normal, and that's all it really is."

Oliver is among the thousands who received a reduction. The North Merced home he bought in 2006 has declined in value by $80,000, he said. "Getting that letter in the mail was pretty nice. Any break you can get is nice."

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

The area's top general contractors report they haven't seen a decline in work that typically accompanies a new-housing slump. They're tied up with projects for years to come. Still, those in the industry have cautioned that the wider effects of a prolonged housing lapse might yet materialize.
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On the flip side, homebuilders are struggling. Second-quarter figures are expected to be issued next week, but the early indication is that housing analysts will report dismal sales in the Sacramento market. That's despite modest gains earlier this year and late last year; and this drop-off is hitting during the peak homebuying season...The current new-home slump is already two years old with no sign of a turnaround.

One sector that might not escape housing's effects is retail establishments. Construction of stores and other retail-related buildings is 8.3 percent lower than it was at the same time last year, a decline that has been masked by the overall surge in other types of buildings.
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Other contractors reported competition for small construction jobs has increased, suggesting there is less demand at the lower end of the business. That might also be a sign of a slowdown. But Davis said the demand for large construction projects such as schools has not caught up with the rapid growth of new homes between 2000 and 2005.

From the Stockton Record:

Concerns about levee safety have Lathrop officials and at least one big developer worried about the viability of building homes on what soon could be classified as a flood plain. The Roseville-based developer Richland Planned Communities already has some roads built and pipes laid into areas of the Land Park project, a 1,500-acre community bordered by Interstate 5 and the San Joaquin River in Lathrop slated to include 6,800 houses, 5 million square feet of office space, a riverside public park, the under-construction Lathrop High School and three planned elementary schools.

But the developer's concerns over an upcoming federal re-evaluation of area levees and a desire to learn more before continuing with the housing project recently caused Manteca Unified School District to postpone building Ethel Allen Elementary, one of the community's schools.
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Richland is not pulling out of the project, Taylor said, but the combination of levee concerns and the slowing real estate market means the company will need to exercise caution.
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Homeowners already living in the newly designated flood plain will be required to have federally backed mortgages and flood insurance. If they already have flood insurance, their costs could rise up to $1,200 a year. If they had no such insurance before, they could be paying $2,200.