The tightening of the loans always ends the bubbles. The first time buyers suddenly are shut out of the market, the move up buyers have contingencies in escrow and cannot move up because the first time buyer can't buy their house, and so on up the chain. It puts a sudden end to things. The situation could be handled a lot better by easing in the loan qualification clauses over time but the bankers would have to be a lot smarter to do that, not likely to happen.
I'm originally from Ventura if you guys know where that is...about 30 minutes from Santa Barbara. Anyway, a few years back there was a large fire in Santa Barbara and it took firefighters about an hour to reach the fire...know why? Because not a single firefighter lived in Santa Barbara...they all live in Goleta(about 20 minutes north) because they can't afford to live in Santa Barbara. Ouch! Santa Barbara isn't a bubble spot...too small and uniquely beautiful to be a bubble...but it's an interesting story nonetheless.
Viva La Colonia! I hate Fernando Vargas with a passion...but De La Hoya is loveable! Oxnard is a pretty crazy place for sure...strange when they started laying down $650k homes on Rose Ave. backing up to the slums of Oxnard...so funny. That place is like the Naples of Southern California if you want to talk about RE bubbles in that area. Camarillo at least is down the grade and close to LA for work both...it's got some advantage...Oxnard has almost none of it.