LA Times on DataQuick today

It's striking to see the front page, top story in today's LA Times get's it right (enlarge map)! It's also more evidence that awareness will continue spreading from the MSM to the general public's buyers and sellers. Expect that to finally turn the Westside's small price increases down.

Home sales plunge in August

Home prices fell in most Southern California neighborhoods and the number of sales tumbled to a 15-year low for August -- driven down by tougher lending standards, mounting foreclosures and skittish buyers.

Sales for the month plunged 36% from a year earlier. What's more, 71% of the Southland's ZIP Codes showed price declines, according to figures released Wednesday by DataQuick Information Systems. The survey excluded areas with 14 or fewer sales. ...

In recent years, the housing market had been propped up by the widespread use of home loans with low introductory teaser rates -- allowing prices to outpace income growth, he said. But with those easy-credit loans all but gone, values are coming back into balance. ...

Nearly 9% of the homes sold last month were foreclosure properties, DataQuick reported, up from 2.2% a year earlier.

Most communities are seeing price declines, and the downtrend is strongest in outlying suburban areas such as in Riverside County, where affordable homes attracted droves of first-time buyers -- many of whom could not qualify for traditional fixed-rated mortgages.

Today, many of these same buyers who counted on rising home values can't refinance their loans and can't make the escalating payments on their adjustable-rate mortgages, forcing them into foreclosure and putting yet more properties on the market. ...

(emphasis added)

Also see the Times's editorial today on bailout plans: "A proposal to ease the pain of those caught in the sub-prime mess may not help the true victims".