The Housing Boom's "Scorched-Earth Retreat"

From News10 (and video):

Sources told News10 Alliance Title Company is shutting down operations in the Sacramento area effective immediately. At one time, Alliance was the number one title company in Sacramento based on market share according to one longtime employee...One employee who was laid off Monday said she was told there's not enough work to continue supporting office operations. "I've never seen it this bad," she said.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Washington Mutual, battling to extricate itself from a worsening mortgage quagmire, said Monday that it will chop 3,150 jobs, close nearly 200 home loan offices, shut call centers and double provisions for loan losses. The reeling bank will shut four home loan centers and one call processing center in the East Bay, three home loan centers in San Joaquin County and one home loan center in Solano County, a bank spokesman said...Among the local shutdowns, the bank revealed that it will close: Home loan centers in downtown Oakland, Dublin, Pleasant Hill,Lafayette, Stockton (two are being closed in that city), Manteca and Fairfield.

From the Modesto Bee:

Hiring in Stanislaus and Merced counties after the new year is expected to be more lethargic than last year, with less than one-fifth of employers projected to add jobs, according to a survey released today. Twenty percent of companies surveyed in the region said they expect to reduce employment in the three-month period starting in January, and 17 percent said they will add jobs, according to the quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
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[Cezanne] Mills said she started seeing some changes in hiring patterns in mid-2007, mostly in the financial sector tied to the housing market. Several mortgage and title companies either closed or scaled back their operations. "A lot of people with good skills were laid off because their company closed," said Mills, who estimates about 50 percent of the people who respond to Manpower job listings in Modesto used to work in the mortgage industry.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Pushing up against almond groves and dirt-bike trails, the row of homes on St. Salazar Circle marks the furthest advance of Modesto's housing boom – and the start of its scorched-earth retreat. Brown, unwatered lawns of foreclosed homes compete with the green grass of neighbors still hanging on. Some of the structures, although new, are missing outdoor equipment like air conditioners, taken by metal thieves. One in 4 houses of the neighborhood stands empty, and mortgage defaults are certain to push even more residents, mostly Hispanic immigrants, out of their homes.
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In the city made famous by the movie American Graffiti, the crisis is unfolding geographically. On its fringes, new neighborhoods, like the one surrounding St. Salazar Circle, the home-loan crisis has hit the hardest. Built during the height of the housing boom, they have the newest residents who paid the highest prices with the most exotic mortgages. After seeing prices rise 10 to 20 percent each year, they're now seeing prices slide downward.

"Right now, our dreams are being crushed," says Marisol Ramirez, a wife and mother of three who bought a home on St. Salazar last year for $370,000. Now, it's priced at $300,000 and the Ramirezes are likely to lose it. Their troubles began when their home was robbed, something that grew common in the neighborhood with the lack of work and the empty homes. That sent their insurance rates higher. Then her husband lost his job in home construction: No one is building these days. They haven't made a mortgage payment in three months on their 40-year, no-money-down loan. Now they are weighing whether to rent around Modesto or just return to Mexico.
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Each day at the stroke of noon, Dean Roots arrives at the courthouse steps to read the 40 or so new homes put on the block....For months now, no more than a half-dozen onlookers have turned out for the ritual. On most days, no one even bids. "I try not to think about it because a lot of these people have brought it on themselves," Ms. Roots says.