The Sac Bee - Optimism?

Not likely, as they wouldn't go quite that far!

I was in a builder's office until nearly 10:00pm last night, helping a couple of families buy their first homes. Great fun.

The builder's sales lady said she remembered well "one bad day in October" when the Sac Bee just about killed their business. She said that visits to the sales office went from a constant stream to almost nothing - overnight.

The Sac Bee isn't our friend. They have been terribly unkind to the Real Estate business. Some of it warranted, but much of their negative energy misplaced.

So imagine the surprise... when the Sac Bee actually posted a few upbeat notes about our real estate market !! Here are a few direct quotes:

"There may actually be a bottom out there."

"But amid the dreary statistics there appears to be the suggestion of a market in the beginning stages of stabilizing."

"Bank-owned homes have come to account for about half of the sales in the region, a factor that has scrambled standard market indicators."

"Real estate ....of Sacramento see a sign that things are looking brighter in bidding wars occurring on bank-owned listings in the suburbs. He suggests the market already is "bouncing off the bottom."

"...bank-owned homes in Elk Grove that once sold for $120 a square foot have risen to $135 per square foot and are going higher."

"We've seen prices stabilize and even go up in some of our communities," he said. Centex, the region's leading builder this year, has started saying no to buyers who ask for concessions that might have been routinely granted earlier.

"There are just a heck of a lot of foreclosures to burn off before the market can kick into gear in any big way,"

The whole article:

http://www.sacbee.com/142/story/854196.html

Wow. If the Sac Bee is noting a change, then it must be real.........

- Jim