Slumburbs
The spectre of brand new and unsold housing developments in the exurbias of the Central Valley and Inland Empires of California, and other overbuilt areas, imply a new sociogeographic development: "new housing" slums. Carol Lloyd's Surreal Estate explores the idea in her Slumburbia article. Prices on these new homes will eventually bottom out to a nadir when they can attract investors, who will rent them out. Local economies, hampered by the recession that has already hit areas of high foreclosure, may not even support the rental markets.
The relative pricing of California exurban housing seems to drop a few thousand dollars per mile away from the coast. Unfortunately, people have figured out that living in Sacramento is like living in a more expensive version of Texas:
“if [Austin] it wasn’t surrounded by Texas it’d be called Sacramento”, Chuck Thompson, travel writer
What price range has been hit the hardest by foreclosures in your area?
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Easy answer, the subprime price range... in the Bay Area, anything below $600k....
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