Track foreclosures in your neighborhood with this tool (http://hotpads.com/pages/features/foreclosures.htm). Fun!

This is an interesting visualization of it too:

Hah, unfortunately Thor's tool doesn't show San Antonio, although I *did* spot a cute little post-war brick number in my old neighborhood in Dallas that made me sentimental for a moment... Being that I'm just beginning a tenure bid here I'm waiting for the landslide to reach its nadir and will probably pick one up then.

My best friend lives just outside Sacramento, CA, where the situation can best be described as 'carnage'. She bought her house for 120k nearly 15 years ago and while it's losing some of the quadrupling in value it did in that time, she's in decent shape, unlike most of her neighbors, many of whom have already been foreclosed on or are now 'upside down' hostages...

Regards,
Nydia

From what I've been reading, the people who are upside down aren't really being held hostage. They're just walking away from the houses instead of continuing to pay. I suppose it stands to reason. If people declare bankruptcy over five figure amounts, they definitely aren't going to hang onto a six figure loss if they don't have to.

Lenders are actually having to pay people a couple thousand dollars just to leave the house without vandalizing it or stealing all of the appliances. Sad.

There has been a serious problem with copper thefts from vacant foreclosed homes in the Minneapolis-St Paul area. with at least a couple house fires attributed to the theft of copper tubing.

Obviously, not good for surrounding property values.

Wow, 5 $1million+ homes foreclosed on in my neighborhood. That must be new.