You write the blog

Well, technically, WE write the blog, but sometimes you tell us what to write. Early this morning frequent commenter Cal told us about this item, a press release late last night from DataQuick Information Systems:

"The median price paid for a home (in California) last month was $479,000, down 1.0% from the record high of $484,000 for March, April and May. That was down 0.2% from $480,000 for June a year ago. The year-over-year decline in median was the first since January 1996, when the then-median of $146,000 was down 2.0% from $149,000 a year earlier."

Both Cal and BetterVillage agreed -- and they rarely agree -- it was a little fishy that DataQuick put this news out late on a Friday night, which is the best time of the week to bury bad news.

Better Village wrote*, "I dont think Dataquick wanted the headline 'Home prices drop first time since 1996' plastered everywhere."

Note: This is a corrected version of an earlier post. In that original post, we misquoted BetterVillage, writing -- wrongly -- that he had suggested the headline for this item would be "Home prices drop first time since 1996." As you can see from his original comment, and the corrected post, BetterVillage did not suggest that headline; he wrote that it was a headline Dataquick probably did not want to see. LA Land regrets the error.

Thanks, Cal.
Photo Credit: Reuters

Comments

[desprate home looker]

Simple math.600,000 in mortgage,30 year fixed is 1.2 million total payment. Now salary of 100,000 ,net 65,000,minus expenses probably leaves 40,000/12=3333 net available to pay for mortgage. This will take about 30 plus years to pay. Now question
1- How many have 100,000 income in Orange county?
2- Can you afford such high payments by all means, taking you have to make minimum this much to buy the home and live in such expensive hotel. never mind, life has ups and down.!!!!!!
3- So moral of story, donot fool yourself. Look in wikipedia about your and next neighbor income,see we cannot afford to live by simple math.
Solution--Hold your horses, stay put ,let uncle Sam work for you, weed out speculation and you,me and all of us can live American dream,be a proud home owner.

[sunsetbeachguy]

Friday afternoon releases are intended to bury th news.

I wonder why Dataquick would pull one of those if they are impartial trackers of the housing market.

Oh I know, the common meme throughout the REIC is that the rust/bust is the media's fault.

Most of DQ's revenue comes from the REIC.

[www.BetterVillage.com, XYZ, PDq.]

"Frequent commenter BetterVillage suggested this headline: "Home prices drop first time since 1996."

In the spirit of trying to keep things honest: Please go back and read the post. I would invite the readers/bloggers to do so as well, but LA Times does not seem to provide a mechanism that helps them do this easily.

But it's not that hard... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2007/07/story-of-the-we.html#comments

Of course, this will be buried here in the Saturday flux... but perhaps one or two will get to read it. I'm PARTICULARLY sensitive when people twist my words, even if it's for a good cause.

Off Topic: Check out the story of Christopher "Rockefeller" - the french "Rockefeller" for some insight into how sociopaths work. It ran today on MSNBC, but you might be able to read a transcript of it somewhere on the net.