Elk Grove's "Phantom Houses"

From the Sacramento Bee:

If you're seeking ground zero of the real estate collapse, go no farther than Laguna Ridge. Four years ago, this 1,900-acre swath – characterized as Elk Grove's "crown jewel" – was master-planned for 7,767 homes. Roads, utilities, parks, and a new high school are all in place. But the downturn hit so hard and so fast that only 310 houses have been sold so far. Thousands of phantom houses lend a surreal air to Laguna Ridge, a vast quadrant of the busy intersection of Elk Grove Boulevard and Bruceville Road.
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"It breaks my heart," said Kathryn Boyce, a Northern California real estate analyst for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. "Laguna Ridge would be perfect – a shining star. But the market crashed so quickly and deeply that it didn't happen." Still, Boyce is a believer in real estate cycles..."The housing market will come back with a roar. At Laguna Ridge, all the infrastructure is in place and you'll see a ton of houses all opening at once. It's poised to come back like wildfire."

So check back in a couple years. Laguna Ridge may be ground zero of the great real estate explosion of 2010.

From Bloomberg:

California led the U.S. into the worst housing recession since the 1930s. Now the most populous state may be the first to find the bottom. In Stockton, the U.S. metro area with the highest foreclosure rate, home sales more than doubled in the second quarter after prices fell by an average 37 percent, said PMZ Real Estate Corp., the area's largest broker...Foreclosed homes are now getting multiple bids and the supply of homes for sale in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties shrank to 4.9 months in June from 18.2 months a year earlier, he [PMZ's Michael Zagaris] said. "We've found the bottom,'' Zagaris said.
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It may take until 2010 for foreclosure sales to work their way out of the system in areas where defaults have soared, said [Chris] Thornberg of Beacon Economics. "Those sales are going to have a very large impact on prices for the next year or so until those homes get absorbed by the market," he said. "Housing markets don't bounce, they splat. They hit bottom and they stay there."

From TheStreet.com:

Jim Cramer
Cheap Housing Markets Will Sow the Seeds of a Rebound

Home prices in Stockton, CA are down 40%. In Daytona, FL, houses are priced at 30% discounts with amenities. The Inland Empire of California -- you name your price. That's how the madness ends: with huge price cuts....It is all coming together, just when no one sees it coming. Because you have to look at the hard-hit regions to know what's going on.

From the Stockton Record:

The union representing the Stockton Police Department's rank and file has filed a claim against the city, saying a 9.5 percent raise budgeted by the city is not enough under the terms of a 2005 agreement.
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The pay increase the police union says it is owed could trouble a city budget already beleaguered by the collapse of the housing market and the inability of flattening sales and property tax revenue to offset rising costs.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order today eliminating jobs for as many as 22,000 temporary state employees and reducing pay for about 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour, portraying it as a stopgap measure to ensure the state can pay its bills without a state budget.

The Republican governor intends to reverse those moves once lawmakers reach a budget compromise, meaning the state would rehire temporary workers and give employees their entire back pay. The governor's order also imposes a strict hiring freeze and eliminates overtime but exempts workers in health and safety fields.