'Kind of a Real Estate Bust'

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

San Diego-based sub-prime lender Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. said Wednesday it is not taking any new loans and it is closing "substantially all" of its 60 lending offices and five support locations as of Sept. 5.

Accredited has retail branch offices in Sacramento, Folsom and Roseville, and it has a centralized retail office in Sacramento.

The moves are part of a restructuring in response to turmoil in the mortgage industry. Those moves will cost 480 people their jobs.

From the Inman Blog:

What a week. Since Friday, banks and mortgage lenders have announced more than 13,000 layoffs.

From the Associated Press (hat tip Sonoma Housing Bubble):

...[M]ore than 25,000 workers nationwide...have lost jobs in the financial services industry since the beginning of the month -- with more than half coming since last Friday. With few exceptions, the cuts are the direct result of woes in the nation's housing market.
...
Since the start of the year, more than 40,000 workers have lost their jobs at mortgage lending institutions, according to recent company layoff announcements and data complied by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Meanwhile, construction companies have announced nearly 20,000 job cuts this year....

It's an employment collapse that threatens to rival the massive layoffs in the airline industry that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when some 100,000 employees lost their jobs.

From the Roseville Press Tribune (hat tip Jeff):

A downturn in property values is showing up on Placer County's assessment rolls, with a drop in assessed values taking a bite out of growth. Placer County Assessor Bruce Dear told the Board of Supervisors at a budget workshop Tuesday that the county's assessment roll increased from $52.3 billion last year to $56.8 billion - an 8.52 percent jump. But the $4.5 billion increase for the year would have been nearly $1 billion more if real estate values hadn't decline, forcing a downward adjustment on about 18,000 mostly residential properties.
...
"The market activity in the spring was kind of a real estate bust," he said. "It suggests the numbers will continue to decline significantly in this assessment roll." For a county that had experienced assessed value increases of never less that 12.76 percent a year since 2001, this year's 8.52 percent rise has already spurred county budget officials to warn that the slowdown in property tax revenue could escalate in the next two years.
...
Sacramento County discontinued offering medical and dental subsidies retiring after May 31 because of a projected $33 million shortfall. El Dorado County is reducing its workforce by 26 positions through early retirements and layoffs, he [Placer county CEO Tom Miller] said.