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Consumer demand is dead. That demand is not coming back anytime soon, and there is no driver for jobs if it doesn’t. Unemployment and GDP will both be extremely weak for the duration.

Today’s Existing Home Sales figure could push Months-of-Supply over that 11.2 level, an ominous sign for housing going forward.

If there were just 4 million home sold (SAAR) and inventory held steady at 4 million units, we would have a record 12 Months of Supply.

The shadow inventory is now estimated to be around 7 million homes. But nobody can really say because, if home prices begin to spiral downwards again, the number cold balloon much higher. Home prices, and possibly our entire economy, will not hit bottom until we undo all of the real estate transactions that never should have happened.

So, after 5 years, how much progress have we made?

My best guess, to use a baseball analogy, is that we’re in the third inning. At this rate, it could be decades before this housing mess is behind us.The shadow inventory is now estimated to be around 7 million homes. But nobody can really say because, if home prices begin to spiral downwards again, the number cold balloon much higher. Home prices, and possibly our entire economy, will not hit bottom until we undo all of the real estate transactions that never should have happened.

So, after 5 years, how much progress have we made?

My best guess, to use a baseball analogy, is that we’re in the third inning. At this rate, it could be decades before this housing mess is behind us.

Doug Reynolds, a Sacramento Realtor, provides an analysis of the local market. This month focusing on the “Double-Dip” that is starting in the Sacramento Real Estate Market. An analysis of past, present and future. More information can be found at his website, www.BuyWithDoug.com, as well as his blog and Facebook page(Doug Reynolds Real Estate).

Housing statistics for July 2010 were just released by the Sacramento Association of Realtors.  The “double-dip” that most economists have been talking about and predicting is starting to show up in the statistics.  Let’s take a look at the numbers for July, then a current rundown of the market and prediction for the rest of [...]

This program has some real potential as well as some obvious shortcomings. Importantly, this could provide infrastructure for more aggressive principal write-downs in the future.

Danville home prices certainly got out of control during the peak of the housing bubble. Since, they have fallen about 30% on average. Where to from here? Sometimes a good graph can help provide some perspective.

Here is everything you need to know about today’s unemployment report…

Proving again that different conclusions can be drawn from the same data, Morgan Stanley is contradicting Case-Shiller’s claim that Bay Area home prices rose by 1.7% in May. According to Morgan Stanley, San Francisco MSA home prices actually fell by 1.2 percent.

I would argue that many of the people who think that now is the time to invest in the lower-end simply haven’t spent much time there. If they did, they would know that most of the residents are just barely hanging on.

Homebuyers Seeking Tax Credit, Equity Sellers Fuel Quarterly Increase in Sales, Prices
 Homebuyers scurrying to meet the April 30 deadline to qualify for a federal tax incentive and a rising percentage of traditional equity sales sparked a sharp increase in the number of existing single-family detached homes sold in Sacramento County during the second quarter of [...]

This slowdown, coupled with disappointing job creation, has led to worries that the recovery is losing steam.

Consumer Confidence slipped in July to a reading of 50.4, slightly below expectations. June’s reading was 54.3.

According to the most recent Case-Shiller report, home prices in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area were up 18.3% from May 2009 to May 2010. On average, national home prices were up an 5% during this stretch…so why did the Bay Area’s home prices go up so much more?