Kelly and Will over at voiceofsandiego.org broke the story yesterday on a huge condo scam involving overpaying for condos with loans made to st raw buyers. What's interesting is that this all happened in the midst of the bust in mid-2008, after lending had tightened up. The scammers even p ... Read more

Before we begin, let me get a couple instances of pimping out of the way. First, I will be on "These Days" on NPR this coming Monday, April 13, at around 9:20AM. Second, I will be on a VoiceOfSanDiego.org panel called "The Economy: Where Are We Really?" on April 23. Detai ... Read more

I will have the complete March rodeo up this week; in the meantime, I have written up (and graphed) the March size-adjusted median price figures at voiceofsandiego.org . read more ... Read the full post ... Read more

My friend Randy Dotinga, a freelance writer who sometimes writes for voiceofsandiego.org, dug up the following ad while researching a story: (click the image for a large version) read more ... Read the full post ... Read more

In reaction to the latest Case-Shiller home price graphs , a few readers have asked how a property worth not much more than $400,000 can be considered a member of the "high-priced tier." The answer is that there is no considering about it. Each month, the Case-Shiller price tiers ar ... Read more

Kelly Bennett has written several words about today's release of the Case-Shiller index for January, so I'll largely just supplement with a few charts. Here is a look at the decline from the peak for all three price tiers: Note that the high-priced tier once again fell hardest last mont ... Read more

Based on their historical relationships with rents and incomes, San Diego home prices are now reasonable. There. I said it. The long-term price-to-income and price-to-rent graphs tell the tale: read more ... Read the full post ... Read more

February proved to be another brutal month for San Diego's job market, according to the EDD's latest estimates. The region is estimated to have lost 37,900 jobs between February 2008 and February 2009. This is a contraction of 2.9 percent. Early in the downturn, the losses first showed up in th ... Read more

A record number of San Diego mortgages went into default last month. 3,705 homes entered this initial stage of foreclosure, surpassing the previous high of 3,601 default notices delivered in April 2008. Trustee sale notices, which occur later in the foreclosure process, remained well below thei ... Read more

Below, please find a few tidbits to aid in any weekend procrastination you might be planning. First, I'll be on KOGO (that would be the radio, AM 600) on Sunday at noon chatting with my buddy Scott Lewis, editor of voiceofsandiego.org , about housing and ye olde inflation/deflation debate. I ... Read more