Broker Pays You to Refi http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-broker19mar19,0,7711405.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews
Slowing home market to ripple through job market from usatoday http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2006-03-19-housing-econ-usat_x.htm quote Home sales have declined nationwide for the past five months, and sales in Southern California fell to their lowest level in five years in February, DataQuick reported Tuesday. quote i dont remember much about so cal in 3/2001, but i do real estate prices were much lower back then.
I remember, because I left about a year later. In Orange County you could buy a normal SFR for about 300k, now it is almost 700k, and those aren't new homes either.
This segment just finished airing a few minutes on the national ABC Nightly News... http://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1752600 "The payments went from $1,700 a month almost to $3,000 a month, so this being my first home, my dream home, I had to lose it."