Heather Soldonia

By Heather Soldonia

More scary than mummies, black cats, or cobwebs is the looming question: Has the real estate market bottomed out?

We REALTORS® have been asking Congress “Trick or Treat? … Please come up with some creative ways to revive the real estate market. Pretty please?”

When Forbes reported the 10 worst real estate markets of 2009, eight were in California. Currently, the unemployment rates are still above 12 percent in California — and remember that unemployment rates are only determined based on the number of people still receiving unemployment benefits — it doesn’t include in its calculation those who have received the maximum amount of unemployment benefits and now have absolutely no income.

Obviously, we can understand why so many mortgages are still going unpaid. In California, default notices have dropped by 10 percent, but that is specifically because lenders are modifying loans and/or short selling.

That being said, let’s take a quick moment to consider how the unemployment rate effects commercial real estate: Continue reading »