Today, Alphonso R. Jackson resigned from his post as secretary for U.S. Housing and Urban Development to “spend more time with his family.” Why does every CEO or high-ranking person say that? Do they expect us to believe it? Or is it just nicer than saying, “hanging out at home being unemployed?”

Either way, the New York Times had this to say:

 The announcement came as federal authorities were investigating whether he had given lucrative housing contracts in the Virgin Islands and New Orleans to friends.

No word on who would replace Jackson for the next 10 months.

Both Lennar and KB Home released reports this week and had these things to say about the housing market. From Lennar:

Stuart Miller, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lennar Corporation, said, “Market conditions have remained challenged and continued to deteriorate throughout our first quarter of 2008. The housing industry continues to be impacted by an unfavorable supply and demand relationship, which restricts the volume of new home sales and, concurrently, depresses home prices in most markets across the country.”

From KB Home’s report, CEO Jeffrey Mezger said:

 ”During the quarter,”Mezger continued, “we operated with significantly fewer communities than a year ago due to our concerted efforts throughout last year and into the current year to reduce inventory, consolidate or exit underperforming markets, and re-size our business to align with market realities and a slower sales pace. Looking forward, we will continue to evaluate our land investments and market positioning to provide a strong, competitive and geographically diverse foundation for growth when the housing markets recover.”

If you saw my article today, then you would know what they propose to do about he whole situation: Be Competitive. Read on:

Jim Hammett, 64, was the first person to move into Taylor Morrison’s 76-unit Sendera development in Concord in November. His three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, Plan 1 home was $597,000, but in a phone call from the builder he found out that prices dropped $50,000.

“I asked if that was going to include me because I was already in contract,” he said. “They said yes.”

But Taylor Morrison didn’t stop there. When Hammett couldn’t pay more than $3,000 a month, the builder kicked in money to lower his monthly mortgage payment from $3,800 to less than $2,500 a month.

“They really wanted me to buy out here and gave me what I wanted,” Hammett, a retired police officer, said.

Forget trips to Hawaii, luxury cars and 50-inch plasma screen televisions, now builders know the only incentives that work for buyers are cheaper homes and smaller monthly payments.

I don’t know if I lament the loss of a Mercedes or a Hawaiian vacation, but it’s nice that builders understand it’s price that makes things sell faster, especially in a declining market. 

Anyone else out there bought a new house lately?

 ”Home prices are down, down, down!” according to the Wall Street Journal. And why they included this consumer confidence chart, I’m not sure, but I liked it.

 According to RealEstateJournal:

The ability of America’s lenders to manage this fire sale will be crucial to determining how long the housing market stays in the dumps — and how quickly blighted neighborhoods can heal. The oversupply is severe: In some major markets, including Las Vegas and San Diego, foreclosure-related sales have accounted for more than 40% of all sales in recent months. 

First American CoreLogic, a research firm based in Santa Ana, Calif., that collects data from lenders and county clerks, estimates that foreclosed properties held by lenders accounted for 493,000 of all homes on the market in January, up from 231,000 a year before. Properties like these represent roughly one of nine currently listed for sale nationwide, compared with a one-in-15 ratio a year earlier.

When talking with Andrew LePage from DataQuick Information Systems, Inc. he told me that in February, 40.4 percent of homes sold in Contra Costa County were foreclosures. The number was 46 percent in Solano, 26.8 percent in Alameda and 26.4 percent in Sonoma counties. San Mateo was 12 percent. (Santa Clara was 11.3 and 11.6 in Marin, if you care.)

Even if you want to look at Alameda’s numbers, that’s still 1 in 4. Yikes!

Golden 1 Credit Union is now offering $20 million in ”mortgage-repair” loans for its customers who have lost their home to foreclosure in the last 18 months. In this tidbit from the Sacramento Bee:

Its “mortgage-repair loan” fund offers 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages to Golden 1 members who lost their home to another lender within the past 18 months.

But it won’t make a huge dent in the mortgage mess – Halleck estimates only about 50 to 75 borrowers will get these loans, which are for a maximum of $417,000.

To qualify for a “mortgage repair” loan, you must meet all three criteria as a:

• Subprime borrower who got into so-called “negative amortization” loans, where the amount owed actually went up over time instead of down.

• Borrower with an adjustable-rate loan that became unaffordable when it reset to higher payments.

• Borrower whose prepayment penalties prevented refinancing.

Golden 1 Credit Union has branches in Vallejo, Fairfield, Vacaville and Dixon in Solano County; Oakland and Hayward in Alameda County; San Francisco and Tracy.

Ask and you shall receive (as much as a blogger/full-time reporter can do anyway!)

Got this e-mail from Trulia.com yesterday and it featured the good old East Bay. Apparently in  a national survey  (with full graphic) of “good schools” Walnut Creek , Moraga and Pleasanton were mentioned as No. 6 (San Francisco Bay) in the nation of good schools/good values. Median listing prices in the ‘Nut were $505,000, in P-Town it was $859,000 and $799,000 in the ‘Rag.

Trulia goes on to say that high performing schools indicate more “recession-proof” areas. The data was taken from GreatSchools.net on more than 125,000 schools and 15,000 school districts, so it’s subjective and your mileage and experience may vary.

It’s nice to see East Bay beat Bethesda, Md., though. But Garden City, Idaho with a median listing price of $334,900 has us beaten. Most of us could afford that now, but probably not on a shepherd’s salary, even if  you would get more baa for your buck.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

I’m a looky-loo, so what? How can you not go to an Open House in your neighborhood. Haven’t you always wanted to know what their house looked like? So you’re not interested in buying, you just want to look.

Apparently, I am, and many like me, are a scourge for real estate agents who feel they have to hold Open Houses to prove to clients they are working. From the Bergen Record:

Agents say some open house visitors go so far as to put a false name and phony phone number on the open-house sign-in sheet. … Others say a lot of open-house visitors are there for the entertainment value of peeking inside other people’s homes — especially those of their neighbors.

“Most people, they may be out looking but they’re not anywhere near ready to buy,” said Re/Max’s Poliandro.

Like WSJ Developments’s Lauren Baier Kim, I resemble that comment. But I don’t go to eat free cookies. I’m weird about eating food from strangers (I blame that on my scary cop-dad or maybe’s it’s my weird Persephone Complex that if I take something  they may own me and drag me to Hades.)

But, why not look? I am technically looking for a house, but I go into houses I’m not that interested in. Still, maybe I’ll find something I like. (And no, I don’t give my real name or address. I have an agent. Don’t pressure people to sign.)

Open Houses are supposed to be that, right? Feel free to comment!

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac today announced a major initiative expected to provide up to $200 billion of immediate liquidity to the mortgage-backed securities market, or about $2 trillion worth of home loans.

What does it mean? Not much. We shall see. At best, be cautiously optimistic.

And onto my Bear Stearns ranting. On MarketWatch today:

Kurt Eggert, a law professor at Chapman University’s School of Law in Orange, Calif., and a former member of the Fed’s consumer advisory council, said the Bear deal shows the “growing disconnect between the Bush administration’s willingness to help Wall Street and its willingness to aid the homeowners facing foreclosure. … Of all the investment houses, Bear Stearns was the one most deserving of going under because of the subprime crisis, both for its ownership of a subprime lender and its work packaging those loans,” Eggert said. “However, the Feds are doing more to help Bear Stearns than the borrowers facing foreclosure because of Bear Stearns actions.”

(Photo is of an Asiatic Black Bear in Vietnam, which are critically endangered because of hunting and bear gall farming.)

I was having a talk with someone the other day about how bankers don’t care about everyone being in foreclosure.

“You remember Mr. Potter from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life?’” I asked. “That’s them. Really.”

“No, no,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. Then in my my best Lionel Barrymore voice, “What are you running here, a building and loan or a charity ward?”

Yes, indeed, bankers who have no interest in doing loan modifications for those in foreclosure and all-the-while, tightening up their lending criteria so no one really gets any of their money. Well, except executives.

So, is it really a great idea to pin our hopes on a voluntary program run by scores of Mr. Potters? Yes, I think you can see the problem with that.

In case you haven’t heard, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve are planning on expanding their $200 billion initial bailout of Wall Street with another $30 billion line of credit (remember when homeowners used to be able to get those?) to JP MorganChase to rescue take over investment firm Bear Stearns and a new lending program for those poor and underprivileged investment banks. According to the Associated Press:

The interest rate will be 3.25 percent and a range of collateral—including investment-grade mortgage backed securities—will be accepted to back the overnight loans.

The “discount” rate cut announced Sunday applies only to the short-term loans that financial institutions get directly from the Federal Reserve. It doesn’t apply to individual borrowers.

Our federal government has let us know repeatedly that investment banks are worthy of saving. Not so much homeowners, though. Could you imagine the government offering a 3.25 interest rate to homeowners now in foreclosure? I’d say that $200 billion would help a lot of people, too.

So when people complain about “bailing out these homeowners” realize that they are already bailing out executives for making very poor decisions. Corporate welfare is alive and well, so don’t begrudge the Concord office worker or the Sacramento teacher a few thousand dollars to save their home.