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Today is the day - we're changing blog hosts!

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What happens to those on the edge of foreclosure?

If you are Jan Terry, owner of this house at 2872 Vista Acedera in La Costa Valley and Jenae's co-conspirator, you pull out all the stops. 

First it was to try their lease-option program, hoping to find a renter willing to cover her roughly $9,000/month obligation.  But no takers. 

Then she tried the typical short sale strategy, starting with a list price of $1,100,000, which was slightly under her purchase price (and 100% loan amount) of $1.25 million in April, 2007.  She eventually lowered it down to $890,000, but then cancelled the listing.

Now she has reverted to the last resort.  We think she must have sent in a short-sale offer to the bank to postpone the trustee sale, which was scheduled for July 17th.

In the meantime, she has rented the house to 14 surly individuals who come and go at all hours, night and day!

The HOA says they can't do anything.  Carlsbad P.D. says they might tow this car that they park around the corner, but that's about all they can do. 

The neighborhood has already suffered from this inflated sale, which contributed to others paying too much - now the impending foreclosure of a house that is surely in disrepair will help tank values further.  Thanks Jenae!!!

We're going to be wrapping up our stay here at square space in the next day or two, and moving to a new blog host.  There shouldn't be any disruption, hopefully many won't notice, but it will require a re-start for the subscribers. 

I'll let you know when, but you'll have to sign up again to receive notifications on your subscriber service.

We're also concluding the third year of bubbleinfo.com next week, and I am very grateful for your readership and participation!  It's impressive that so many people are interested in SD real estate!

How many you ask?

Here are the stats from the last 12 months:

Thank you for being here - and stay tuned!

We're going through the old posts while converting over to the new blog host, and have seen some memorable quotes along the trail:

1. "With sales stabilizing, we should go back to positive price growth early next year" David Lereah 9/25/06

2. "This to me is a market correction. It's just a leveling out of the market. It's not a downturn that is going to be going on for an extended period of time. We're looking at a flat market continuing for certainly the balance of 2006 and at least the first quarter of 2007, with a continued slight decrease in unit sales and a very slight decrease in average sales price."

"The last down-cycle in the market in Northern California about 10 years ago was much more severe because it really was an economic downturn. This is not as severe in comparison."  Sherry Chris, COO, Prudential California Realty 10/30/06

3. "It appears the worst of the price correction is behind us," said Pat V. Combs, NAR's president and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt in Grand Rapids, Mich. 5/15/07

4. "Now is a great time for consumers to be in the housing market: Prices have steadied, and inventories are healthy." Lawrence Yun 7/3/07

5. “The big issue here is that with the slowdown, you would have expected prices to come down much more than they have, and it's very likely now that most of the decline off the peak for San Diego has already occurred,” he said.

“As perceptions change and buyers understand that what they're buying will keep its value or go up, you should see between now and the end of the year the number of sales tick up off this floor level,” Karevoll said. “The big IF there is what happens in the broader economy. The big one there is mortgage interest rates.”  John Karevoll 7/17/07

6.  "In the boom, we heard a lot of complaints from people who couldn't find properties they wanted to buy them", Molony says.  "Now that inventory levels have improved, there are more opportunities for buyers who may have been frustrated in the past".  Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors 7/31/07

7. The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Wednesday agreed to relax the restrictions on the mortgage finance companies' investment holdings though he did not eliminate existing caps.

The moves are meant to help Fannie and Freddie "provide greater assistance to subprime borrowers and others who may have trouble refinancing their existing mortgages," OFHEO director James Lockhart said in a statement, but he will not allow "any major increases in the (investment) portfolio levels."

Among other steps, OFHEO will allow Fannie and Freddie more flexiblity to manage their investments valued at a combined $1.4 trillion and will also bring Fannie's investment caps in line with the looser rules imposed on Freddie.  9/19/07

8. In short, all the old assumptions are no longer operative.  Rob Dawg, 1/3/08

Robert Decker, the guy who conspired with a chiropractor in the OC to steal patients' identities and buy houses in their name, pled guilty today. Though he only pled out to three counts of grand theft, there were many more house purchases. He admitted to stealing over $1 million, and is facing six years in jail. Here is a link to Kelly's story:

Link to Voice article

Plus a video of one of the houses - the one rented by Robert Carreon that coincidentally got sent my way after it was foreclosed: