Is the mini rebound over ?

San Mateo County saw 463 sales of single-family resale homes, the lowest for a July in 20 years. In Santa Clara County, the 1,159 single-family resale homes that closed escrow represented a drop of 24.3 percent from the 1,531 sold a year earlier, making this the second-slowest July since 1990, according to figures released Thursday by the real estate information service MDA DataQuick.

Unprecedented times …

$1,300,000
22481 WALNUT Cir Cupertino $1.3M 4B4b 2700 lot 8250

Listing says “4 bedroom could be 4/2 & 2/2 or 3/2 & 3/2 if walls put back” !!
The attic is used for a children’s bedroom, fine and dandy except for those hot summer days. Property is on Foothill.

A good read on how the banks have screwed with tax payer funds twice.

Like the credit default swaps that hid Greece’s obligations, the instruments weighing on our municipalities were brought to us by the creative minds of Wall Street. The rocket scientists crafting the products got backup from swap advisers, a group of conflicted promoters who consulted municipalities and other issuers. Both of these camps peddled swaps as a way for tax-exempt debt issuers to reduce their financing costs.

The TALF program is coming to an end and the loan market has hardly recovered yet.

Investors have a deadline of today for taking out loans through TALF this month. The program, which provides loans to investors buying the debt, began in March 2009 and expires March 31…. TALF was started to jump-start the market for bonds tied to consumer and small-business loans after sales of the debt plummeted 42 percent in 2008, choking off funding to lenders, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The program spurred $178 billion of securities sales, according to Bank of America…In making the decision to end TALF and three more programs like it, the Fed said in a statement on Jan. 27 that the economy “has continued to strengthen,” while “the pace of economic recovery is likely to be moderate for a time.” The central bank also said it’s “prepared to modify these plans if necessary to support financial stability and economic growth.”

Here’s another study relating asthma and proximity to roads.

Children Living Near Major Roads At Higher Asthma Risk

The study found that children living within 75 meters (about 82 yards) of a major road had an almost 50 percent greater risk of having had asthma symptoms in the past year than were children who lived more than 300 meters (about 328 yards) away.

State pension funds are now investing in the PPIP vulture funds in this twisted tangle of public private financing. State pension funds are funded with taxpayer dollars so that means the PPIP is purely public in this instance with no private funding component in it apart from the management aspects and fees.

More than a dozen corporate and public pension funds have made commitments to PPIP, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Connecticut state pension fund has committed $100 million to Invesco’s fund, which offers a 25% expected return, said Catherine LaMarr, general counsel for the office of the treasurer. Another $50 million has been committed to an AllianceBernstein fund, which is projecting a 10% to 17% return, before using any leverage, Ms. LaMarr said.
… The $1.8 billion fund of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County is planning to invest $40 million in PPIP, half with Marathon Asset Management and the other half with a joint venture between GE Capital and private investor Angelo Gordon & Co., according to the fund’s chief investment officer Fadi BouSamra.
The $20.4 billion Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds plans to split $200 million between AllianceBernstein, Invesco and W.L. Ross & Co., Marathon Asset Management and Wellington Management Co…
Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (CRPTF), which consists of six State pension and eight State trust funds, the Treasurer is responsible for prudently managing the retirement funds for approximately 160,000 teachers, state, and municipal employees who are pension plan participants and beneficiaries as well as academic programs, grants, and initiatives throughout the State.

As was reported earlier in this site, the mortgage modification program is a bust.

Some useful links for first time home buyers.

http://www.calhfa.ca.gov/homeownership/programs/chdap.htm
http://www.sfgov.org/site/moh_page.asp?id=48041
http://www.sjhousing.org/ City of San José Department of Housing WelcomeHOME Loan Assistance Program
http://www.oaklandnet.com/government/hcd/loansgrants/firsttime.html
http://www.myhomegateway.com/
Mortgage Credit Certificate.

One in four borrowers owe more than their mortgages.

One in eight are at least 20 percent underwater.

Even for mortgages obtained in 2009, one in ten are underwater.

Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif….Home prices have fallen so far that 5.3 million U.S. households are tied to mortgages that are at least 20% higher than their home’s value, the First American report said. …Even recent bargain hunters have been hit: 11% of borrowers who took out mortgages in 2009 already owe more than their home’s value.