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UPDATE: More stories about Dunmore Homes. From Builder's Online:

Faced with declining sales in a sputtering Sacramento, Calif., market, venerable home builder Dunmore Homes was sold today to Michael Kane, well known in the local real estate industry.
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John Slaughter, vice president of construction and operations, said the company cut its staff from 134 employees to 45 from 2006 to 2007, and anticipated closing slightly more than 200 homes this year - roughly 25 percent of its 2003 peak. Slaughter said the company expected no further layoffs and planned to move forward under the Dunmore Homes name with Sid Dunmore acting as an advisor.

From the News10 (and video):

Contractors have filed millions of dollars in liens against Dunmore Homes, and in some cases against people who bought the houses. Lukas Allred, who bought a home in Monterey Village in May, discovered the company that built his fence has filed a lien against him. "We purchased our homes with free and clear title, and now we're finding out there are liens on our homes that aren't our responsibility," complained Allred.

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

Dunmore Homes, a fixture on the Sacramento residential construction market since 1953, has been acquired by a Sacramento businessman who is pursuing a restructuring of the company, Dunmore Homes announced Wednesday. The transaction involved transfer of assets and assumption of liabilities to a successor company owned by Michael Kane, a Sacramento native.
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"The recent decline of sales in today's homebuilding industry has had a devastating effect on most private and public homebuilders," ["bouncing around the bottom" Sid] Dunmore said in a prepared statement.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Housing decline forces Dunmore to sell company

Granite-Bay Dunmore Homes, a local family owned builder since 1954, has become the first major home builder casualty of the slumping Sacramento-area housing market...The news highlights the growing difficulties of home builders in a market that is mired in a massive oversupply of for-sale inventory. Many buyers are also reluctant to commit while prices are falling.

Photos of Dunmore's Monterey Village development in Elk Grove here.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Tough times in the national housing market led to a company record loss of $513.9 million for Lennar Corp. in the third quarter, with drops in sales prices and home deliveries compounded by heavy charges to write down land values. Its shares fell almost 4 percent. Lennar, one of the nation's largest home builders, said Tuesday it had cut its work force by 35 percent this year and that it expects to pare more employees soon.
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Lennar is the Sacramento region's third largest home builder so far this year with 420 sales reported from January through July, according to Costa Mesa-based Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. That's down sharply from 747 sales at the same time last year. Lennar, which also operates in the region as U.S. Homes and Winncrest Homes, has projects in Rancho Cordova, Roseville, Natomas and El Dorado Hills. Its biggest is at Rancho Cordova's Anatolia community, where it is a partner with Sacramento-based AKT Development.

From the Sacramento Bee:

It's no secret that Sacramento and many other California cities grew dependent on the booming housing market to drive economic growth. Statistics released Wednesday show just how true that was. Construction and finance accounted for 40 percent of metropolitan Sacramento's economic growth in 2005, the most recent figures available, according to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The national average was 27 percent.

From the Tri-Valley Herald:

Anderson Homes is auctioning off 34 homes in the Paseo West subdivision in Manteca far below asking price as a way to stir up interest among homebuyers and move homesquickly...Neighbors in the Paseo West subdivision have voiced their frustration to local newspapers about the prospects of an auction — including that they paid more for the homes when the market was booming and that housing speculators would bring in renters or the potential for foreclosure.

"It's certainly something we've thought about, but also we looked at what we paid for land and the continued downward trend in the market," Barton said. "We feel the auction could give the buyers out there a shot in the arm." "We wanted to make sure those empty houses next door were filled with families," Anderson said, noting the problem San Joaquin County and Manteca has had with foreclosures and abandoned properties.
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The case of Anderson Homes is similar to situations throughout the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley, said Daryl Franks, director of franchise sales for Pacific Auction Exchange. "It's a question of what's worse, do you want to slowly die of a thousand cuts or do you cut the arm off," he told a group of local real estate experts Tuesday with regards to the current housing climate.

From the Stockton Record:

...[S]ales prices dropped off in this region, falling 11.5 percent in the Central Valley, to $309,740, and 12.1 percent in Sacramento, to $332,510, the report said....Central Valley sales were down nearly 34 percent year-to-year, the state association's report said...Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the Realtors association, said the sales market was already challenged by low affordability, tighter credit standards and expectations of lower prices, but the sales decline accelerated in August because of the credit or liquidity crunch that began in July.
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Real estate agents and brokers in San Joaquin County complain that the increase in foreclosures is the top reason the sales market is so slow...Foreclosures have clogged the market, and until they clear out, there's little hope for a normal sales scene, said Mike Collins of Collins Realty in Stockton.

From KCRA:

Four men accused of being involved in a mortgage fraud scheme will face charges in federal court, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said Tuesday. In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, a federal grand jury charged James Roy Martin, 36, Mario Fellini III, 38, Gabriel Richard Viramontes, 44, and Joseph Salvatore Gallo, 34, with bank fraud and conspiracy to launder money, Scott said. Martin, Fellini and Gallo were also indicted on charges of making false statements in loan applications, and Martin, Fellini and Viramontes were indicted on mail fraud charges, Scott said.

From the Sacramento Bee:

If convicted, the defendants face up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $1 million each for bank fraud. Mail fraud carries penalties up to 20 years in prison, while money laundering can draw sentences up to 10 years, federal authorities said...Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Stegman said the case is one of several area mortgage fraud cases being investigated by federal authorities in the wake of a housing boom that saw a major relaxation of lending standards and a rise in allegations of loan fraud.