Bay Area Real Estate Trends

Check out the Youth Unemployment rates for Portugal, Greece, and Spain. Talk about driving social mood to a darker place… Courtesy Zero Hedge: For comparison, the Youth Unemployment rate (16-24 year olds) in the United States was last reported at 18.1%.

There is an interesting article in the Oakland Tribune today about the differences between the South Bay and East Bay economies. While the South Bay has technology, the East Bay became far too reliant on construction and real estate during the boom. From The Oakland Tribune: The current economic boom will be robust enough for [...]

A housing recovery can’t happen without consumers feeling more confident and spending money again. Two news stories this morning suggest that we’re still heading in the wrong direction. Most of us are financially hanging by a thread while our actually incomes are falling. DS News reports Job Loss Could Put One in Three Out of Their [...]

There was a really interesting article published on CNN.com a few weeks ago which asked: Are Jobs Obsolete? It’s a fresh take on our rising unemployment problem, suggesting that maybe the lack of paying jobs really isn’t a problem at all. With technology and productivity both increasing so much lately, we simply don’t need as [...]

It’s hard to argue that the housing market will improve until A) we’ve flushed all of the foreclosures through the system and B) the economy begins to improve. And until unemployment shows some serious improvement, don’t expect the economy to feel like it’s getting better. High unemployment is both a symptom of a bad economy [...]

Today’s unemployment report was terrible. Not only were the 18,000 jobs created more than 100,000 below expectations, but previous months were revised down sharply as well. The deeper you dig into the details, the more troubling this jobs report is.