Last Resort

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

Members of a Placer County country club stand to lose an estimated $11 million in initiation fees because of the club’s foreclosure. Winchester Country Club members will be allowed to play golf there for a nominal fee while the course’s fate hangs in limbo. They’re hoping a buyer will honor those memberships when the course, clubhouse and remaining land are sold by the foreclosing companies, led by Wachovia Bank. If not, they would lose $25,000 to $85,000 each, depending on when they joined and the type of membership.
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Winchester was the most expensive country club for members in the Sacramento region, said golf appraiser and consultant Ron Carciere of Auburn..."Not a lot of people around Auburn can afford a $1 million or $2 million home, so you’re relying on attracting people from L.A. or the Bay Area to relocate outside of Sacramento," he said. "It’s a market that won’t support the values they were looking to get. It struggled from the beginning."..."There are a lot of sophisticated people here who didn’t realize what we could lose," [a resident] said.

From the Modesto Bee:

The Western Hills Water District that serves the Diablo Grande resort development in western Stanislaus County has been cited by the California Department of Public Health for failure to clean up problems with the water supply in the development.
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Residents of Diablo Grande are frightened and frustrated with the problem, said Kristina Ross-Ortiz, who with her husband owns two homes in Diablo Grande, an investment property and their residence. "We have to use bottled water for drinking and cooking," she said. "There's no way around showering. We are just stuck. We are terrified of getting cancer or having children with birth defects," Ross-Ortiz said.
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Home prices at Diablo Grande have shrunk to half of what she and her husband paid, Ross-Ortiz said, making it difficult to move. "It makes you think we should just walk away. It comes down to the health of yourself and your family," she said.

From the Sacramento Bee:

It would have been easier for Rick Zibull to take it if his restaurant was closing because the competition beat him. But Z's Wine Bar and Bistro in El Dorado Hills is shutting down Saturday night for reasons beyond its owner's control: Gas at $4.50 a gallon. Soaring food costs. And that rotten housing market. "People having to make a choice: 'Do I spend a hundred bucks to put gas in my tank, or do I spend a hundred bucks on a night out?'" Zibull said. "You can guess which way that decision goes."
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The number of customers visiting Z's to dine from a menu that includes $7 onion soup, rack of lamb for $19, and $25 for filet mignon and the trimming has fallen 50 percent from last year, Zibull said.

From Bloomberg:

Rising mortgage rates are driving up the cost of buying a house even as prices fall, making property more expensive across the U.S., according to a new study by Zillow.com, an online provider of home valuations.
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The trend holds true in California metro areas including Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego, where mortgage payments on median priced homes range from 7 percent to 10 percent more now than in April.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Tom Kunz has been president and chief executive officer of Century 21 Real Estate LLC since June 2004.
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Q: Year-over-year sales are up in the Sacramento area for the first time in three years. What might that signify?

A: A lot of that is because you have seen some decline in pricing. That has opened the marketplace to more buyers, both first-time buyers and move-up buyers. I think that's a good sign. I don't declare victory in any way, shape or form yet. I think we're not going to see an absolute V in the market. We're going to see somewhat of an elongated U. We're going to bounce around there for awhile.

From socialistworker.org:

It wasn't only an influx of outsiders that created the housing bubble. The root of the problem in Stockton is the same as everywhere else--people were convinced to buy homes at inflated prices, reassured by a whole cast of unscrupulous characters that everything would work out. The realtors, lenders and banks--and the corporate boards that oversaw the whole process and orchestrated massive profit margins out of it--are responsible for this debacle.
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The former escrow manager told me that when realtors or lenders were called on to explain the full implications of the contracts, they always found a way of convincing buyers that it would work out in their best interest. As she explained, "They would say, 'Interest rates are going down, the price on your home is going up, your salary is going to increase, so this will all work out. You can trust me.'"