Industry 'Laying Off Long-Time Employees Right and Left'

From pacificunionhomes.com (hat tip reader HS):

As I am sure you are aware, we all are experiencing a major downturn in our industry. These adverse conditions in the market have forced us to re-evaluate the Company’s future as a homebuilder. Accordingly, Pacific Union Homes has made the decision to cease further homebuilding operations. We will continue to build-out and sell those homes currently in production, including the model homes.

Pacific Union Homes is a diversified real estate company, with homebuilding being only one of its many operations. Although, the Company has decided to no longer operate as a production homebuilder, we will continue to focus on land development and our other real estate-related businesses. [Read more]

From the Lodi News Sentinel:

Real estate, lending, appraisal and title company offices have laid off employees and closed offices during the housing slump. "They're laying off long-time employees right and left," said Lodi Realtor Rose Mendonca.
...
Earlier this year, Chicago Title Co. closed its Lodi office and consolidated with the Fidelity National Title Co., and four employees have lost their jobs, according to Renee Primasing, a marketing representative at the Fidelity office on Kettleman Lane. That leaves four in Lodi's Fidelity office. And in Galt, Alliance Title Co. will close its doors in the near future, with two employees being transferred to the Greenhaven office off Interstate 5 in south Sacramento. Alliance's Elk Grove office has already closed, according to employees in the Galt and Sacramento offices who asked to not be identified.
...
Stockton-based Grupe Co. has suffered with their new-home market, said CEO Kevin Huber...[who] estimates that 20 Grupe employees have been laid off in the past year....

From the Associated Press:

Plenty of locally owned stores are facing a struggle. In California's San Joaquin Valley, Christina Perret said the foundering housing market has caused sales to sag at her three high-end women's fashion clothing shops and forced her to reconsider her stock. Perret's gotten rid of racks of flashy tops with plunging necklines that were favorites with real estate agents, substituting a line of conservative sweaters popular with farmers' wives. "We're going after the wives of dairymen and women in agriculture because their economy is so much more stable," said Perret, 25. "Even moms who come in shopping with their daughters for prom aren't wanting to spend as much now. They want to buy dresses for $200 max and know their daughters can wear it at graduation next year."

From the Stockton Record:

A decline in money transfers and increased reverse migration is expected due to the troubled housing market and the lack of construction jobs, said Jose Rodriguez, director of El Concilio (Counsel for the Spanish Speaking).

"The construction industry has taken a hit. It's a ripple effect for them," Rodriguez. Also, he said, homeowners are cutting back expenses such as landscaping and other services. That's a problem since a vast number of immigrants work in the service industry.

From the Stockton Record:

The auction of 61 foreclosure homes in San Joaquin County last month resulted in the sale of two out of three of the homes offered in no-minimum bidding in Stockton...Typically, more than 90 percent of top auction bids are accepted by highly motivated banks...."Banks may not have a complete understanding of the Stockton market yet, so expectations may be above what's happening in the market," she [a spokeswoman for Hudson & Marshall] said.
...
Another agent with a half-dozen listings in the auction, Cindy Mello of Home Buyers Realty, Stockton, said not one of the bids for her listings was accepted or negotiated to a sale. "It says the auction doesn't work, that it's a marketing ploy," she said. "I don't think the banks are ready to negotiate yet."

From the Sacramento Bee:

C.C. Myers, the contractor whose road-building exploits have become the stuff of California legend, said Friday he is working to stave off foreclosure on his Auburn area country club development. Wachovia Bank, in a 23-page complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, alleged that Myers has defaulted on more than $61 million in loans and is seeking to foreclose on the 1,100-acre Winchester Country Club.

From KCRA:

From News10:

As recently as last spring, Myers told a construction trade magazine that despite the housing slowdown in other areas, Winchester continued to see "solid demand" for high-end homes.

From the Sun-Post:

Two Manteca housing developers that purchased the right to build homes in town in 2005 persuaded the City Council this week to let them hold on to that right until 2010, hoping that the housing market will turn around by then. Developers Marvin Brochinni and Atherton Woodward Partners had originally promised the city they would give up reservations for any homes they failed to build within two years. However, plummeting property values and a glut of unsold homes in the city have upended both developers’ subdivision plans, and they now hope that waiting a couple of years will help get their projects back on track.

From the Redding Record Searchlight:

In September, I reported that the worst might be over for real estate in Redding -- cautious optimism stemming from a second-quarter federal housing index.

Maybe not.

In its latest index, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) says home prices in Redding in the third quarter of 2007 were 3.66 percent lower than in the same quarter a year ago and 2.54 percent lower than the second quarter of this year.