So much news, so little time. I just returned from Dr. John Husing’s forecast delivered to the EWDC entitled ‘Start of the Recovery ’. You can read all 56 pages by clicking the link but I’ve included a couple charts I found most interesting. Dr. Husing’s take? There are lots of little bits of positive news – but very little bits. It’s likely to be 2012 before we start to feel ‘normal’ again as a country, and the Inland Empire might even lag that a little. First, some good news. As I’ve pointed out in past months, our housing affordability is at an all time high in the region. From a low of about 15% in 2005-2006, we’ve quadrupled that to over 62% today. Had that increase come from a plethora of high paying jobs moving into the region that would have been spectacular. Unfortunately the increase is the result of our dramatic decline in housing prices, as we’re all aware. Still, housing affordability is a good thing. Poised for growth, the region continues to offer significant home price advantages over neighboring markets. That disparity, plus the attraction to first-time buyers, will continue to drive demand in our region that doesn’t necessarily exist in other areas. While building and new permits continues to lag, we are seeing some uptick in new home construction in virtually every city in the region. One of his most disturbing slides illustrates that EVERY wage and salary job created in California since 1998 has been lost! Talk about a lost decade. During that time we’ve added about 5 million residents to the state so the imbalance of unemployment is exacerbated. And while August unemployment in the US stood at 9.6%, and California weighed in at 12.8%, the Inland Empire is currently 15.1%, second only to Detroit for unemployment in regions over 1 million population. The IE created 42.3% of California's jobs from 2000-2007 but we are actively chasing those jobs away as the legislature seeks to grow ‘green’ jobs and other tech jobs to the detriment of the kind of blue collar manufacturing, construction & logistics jobs that grew our region and state during the last boom. We need to focus on our own jobs base and creation because Sacramento is not going to help us. I’ve also included a complete run-down of foreclosure data for your city. Dr. Husing noted the portent of a shadow inventory and the potential for additional downward price pressure from a large release of REO properties. IF such a thing exists, and IF the banks are foolish enough to release everything at once instead of trickling them onto the market, I still believe between our anemic inventory levels and strong demand, we would see minimal, if any, impact to our median price in the region. Now to some local news. I read an article in one of the local papers last week where the reporter said local sales ‘plummeted’ in August. You may recall last month when I chuckled at national writers using the terms ‘plummeted’ and ‘plunged’ to describe the last two months of housing sales. That’s certainly not the case here in Southwest California so I can only ascribe our local writers trepidations to reading too much AP. As you can see, single family sales remained strong posting moderate gains over July in 4 of 6 cities. Sales are well ahead of January figures and up even stronger over last August. Prices also maintained their stagger – up here, down there – nothing spectacular. I would also remind you that the unit sales presented here are single family home sale only. They do not include condo’s, mobile homes or 3 rd party auction sales. Murrieta recorded 34 condo sales last month, Temecula 11. By any measure, our demand remains good. Perhaps not as strong as 6 months ago but still healthy. Many buyers have grown frustrated with the short sale process and are simply sitting on the sidelines until a return of REO’s or a return to standard sales. Well priced standard sales are in great demand and multiple bids for them and REO’s is still common. As you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call.