Orange County real estate and finance jobs in February fell to their lowest level since March 2004 as bosses slashed 18,700 jobs (7.5%) in the past year. Jobs in these niches have declined, on a year-over-year basis, for 10 straight months. The drop pushed real estate/finance’s share of the overall O.C. workforce to 15.5%, the lowest since December 2003.
Bosses in non-real estate/finance niches cut total workforce by 2,800 in the year ended in February. It’s the fifth consecutive year-over-year decline outside of real estate/finance as the broader economy begins to show signs of weakness. (To see the bigger picture, CLICK HERE!)
Here’s a look at real estate/finance by key slices …
| Job slice | Last mo. | Vs. ‘07 | Vs. ‘07 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | 98,000 | -4,200 | -4.1% |
| • Construct buildings | 23,100 | -1,200 | -4.9% |
| • Heavy construction | 8,000 | -400 | -4.8% |
| • Specialty trades | 66,900 | -2,600 | -3.7% |
| Lending activities | 36,600 | -13,800 | -27.4% |
| • Bank lending | 18,400 | -200 | -1.1% |
| • Non-bank lending | 13,300 | -8,500 | -39.0% |
| • Lending support | 4,900 | -5,100 | -51.0% |
| Other finance | 10,900 | -300 | -2.7% |
| Real estate/leasing | 37,600 | -1,600 | -4.1% |
| • Real estate | 31,400 | -1,200 | -3.7% |
| • Leasing | 6,200 | -400 | -6.1% |
| Bldg. services | 32,700 | +1,500 | +4.8% |
| Building supply | 11,200 | -600 | -5.1% |
| Farm | 5,300 | +300 | +6.0% |
| All real-estate related | 232,300 | -18,700 | -7.5% |
| All other O.C. jobs | 1,263,400 | -2,800 | -0.2% |
| All O.C. jobs | 1,495,700 | -21,500 | -1.4% |
A 40% drop in non-bank lending jobs, wow! And those lending support people, half of them laid off in 12 months. I’d call that a wipeout of the entire non-bank lending sector.
REO still increasing and all the creative lenders and creative financing gone. 2008 is way to early for a bottom on this one. 2012 baby, although you might want to buy in 2010, if you can wait through a year or two of further declines, i.e. won’t need to sell anytime soon.
A down payment is not “risk capital,” so why take the risk? Sit tight until the gamblers and speculators have all been washed out and the housing market isreturned to us people trying to raise a family.
Have a great day bloggers!!
don’t worry…. we are also at the bottom for jobs in the OC
subprime is going to come back in full force this year….. 100% financing no doc loans at 10 X income ratios should be back by december
Shake and Bake baby !
Start laying the Granite ! The HELOC train is back on schedule… CHOO CHOOO…..
adios gypsies
Human nature would dictate that losing money on real estate would lead to a more conservative approach to this volatile area of ‘investment’. It is one thing to desire and occupy a nice home in a nice area; quite another to speculate and think that the market will go up forever. This has happened before and will again, especially with short sighted individuals who take huge risks then expect someone to rescue them…History is the big equalizer.
well I think personaly economy is not so good and it doesn’t look like
its going to get better
Sadly the bottom fell out of the lending industry.
With no self control of lending standards and investors
money to burn this is the result.
I’m sure all the mortgage bankers would like a second
chance to steal our money again but this time they
would want to save some !
I think it’s comical to think these people need sympathy. A good percentage of them are WILDLY wealthy. Many of them have millions to show for their efforts. It’s the back office group who need sympathly, but they will, or have, found replacement jobs. I know the image of these people hurting really turns a lot of you on, but most of them are light years ahead of you financially.
Good
I wont have any sympathy for them
Good News! Target is hiring. So is WalMart.
you proudly brag that people in the real estate industry became millionaires because of their greed during this inflating bubble…
but through the side of your mouth you speak of sympathy for the little people…
spoken like a charlatan…
If that was to me, that was hardly bragging. People who are good at their jobs and earn big money have nothing to either brag about, nor be ashamed about. What does it matter if they are a real estate broker, a lawyer, a doctor, a businessperson, a commodities broker, if they sell insurance, or medical products or video games? It doesn’t. It seems the only difference here is that you feel they have harmed you personally.
Thoughtful
Still waiting……….Still waiting…….
Your credentials please………….
The truth is you have less credentials then me, you are the village idiot.
The entire world knows that we had a real estate bubble in the united states. Bankers are writing of 100’s of billions of dollars because they know that real estate assets are worth far less than the valuations used over the past several years. Fundamentals based on traditional valuations suggest that the value of homes was between 40 and 50 % too high in Orange County.
Still waiting for your credentials………
Thoughtful,
I continue to laugh at your comments, full of assumptions as you theorize what many of us think.
Please keep the laughs coming.
Got I hate waiting. Hopefully I’ll know if my offer was accepted within a day or two. ho hum.
IE here I come, about 45% off peak price for a new condo.
Goodbye renting in OC.
Thoughtful,
Only the village idiot would accuse others of having no credentials when you yourself don’t seem to have any credentials……….
Thoughtful,
Only the village idiot would accuse others of having no credentials when you yourself don’t seem to have any credentials……….
Maybe its time for you to change your name again…..I’ve exposed you one more time.
Poggi:
Good luck, I know you have watched and waited for this one- it’s the perfect time for you to buy- more power to you. I’m waiting this one out. Homes haven’t even started the spiral where I’m at yet. But I know they will.
Nano- what are you talking about credentials? What are you trying to get into a fraternity? Some folks who have credentials from Harvard and Princeton are total losers, and some with credentials from tiny little colleges in the middle of nowhere can make their name worldwide. Credentials don’t mean a hill of beans if you know what you are doing.
Just the facts: Loved the video. It’s amazing to have your lifestyle slapped right in your face, but my husband sees it all the time when he travels over to Asia. We are glutons over here, myself included. We have no idea how the real world lives.
Thoughtful: I don’t know about them being wildly wealthy. Most people here overspend and have nothing in savings to use for the future. I don’t feel sorry for them though, like you. If you can’t afford a house- don’t buy it. If you can’t afford to lose the loan you just financed- don’t make the loan.
It all needs to play out without much interference, it will go quicker and cost less tax dollars that way.
Just the facts said: “as david
walker so eloquently stated we have a lot more
to fear from our own fiscal ineptitude than some terrorist
in a cave in afghanistan… aint it the truth.”
Unless of course you or a loved one was affected by attacks in Aden, Yemen in 1992 - an effort to thwart American soldiers on their way to Somalia to help with famine relief efforts. No soldiers were harmed, but two civilians died, thus marking the beginning of Al Qaeda harming civilians over fighting armies.
In 1993, Ramzi Yousef used a truck bomb to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. The attack was intended to break the foundation of Tower One knocking it into Tower Two, bringing the entire complex down. Yousef hoped this would kill 250,000 people. The towers shook and swayed but the foundation held and he succeeded in killing only six people (although he injured 1,042 others and caused nearly $300 million in property damage).
On November 13 1995 a van containing a hundred pounds of Semtex explosive blew up near the communications center for the Saudi National Guard in downtown Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where some American military contractors and Army officers had been training the Saudi National Guard. Seven people were killed, and sixty people were injured.
On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a fatwa (binding religious edict) under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Combat Against the Jews and Crusaders (al-Jabhah al-Islamiyya al-’Alamiyya li-Qital al-Yahud wal-Salibiyyin) declaring:
[T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, ‘and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,’ and ‘fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah’.
The attacks were the most devastating terrorist acts in American history, killing nearly 3,000 people, destroying four commercial airliners, leveling the World Trade Center towers, and damaging The Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.
The September 11, 2001, attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 fatwa issued against the United States and its allies by military forces under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others. Evidence points to suicide squads led by al-Qaeda military commander Mohammed Atta as the culprits of the attacks, with bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Hambali as the key planners and part of the political and military command.
You can either worry about fiscal ineptitude, or an organization that has proven its willingness to harm our citizens, or both.
I say both.
Jon,
What is up with all of the moderating these days? No cuss words in the posts…just topics of interest or a response to another poster.
David,
Truthi is always saying that my contributions are meaningless because I have no credentials in the real estate industry….no big deal.
Nano
I’m sorry
I kept reading your comments today and just took it from there- didn’t know there was a meaningless little feud. Sorry if I was out of line with that.
I have been put in detention I think…
Nanowest, you’re a fruitcake. First, I never questioned your credentials; I merely parroted your admission that you have none when it comes to real estate. I know you think we all look up to you with your advanced degree in science, but we don’t. As for me, I earned an MBA, and am working toward an MFA – neither of which mean jacksh!t when it comes to this discussion. Now, to quote some astute poster from the past: quit humping my leg. If you want to meet in person to discuss this further I am all in. Name the time and place.
Yes, Mom, it is a meaningless little fued. So little, that it only exists in the fantasies of Nanowest. It’s nothing more than an excuse for him to tout his Phd. that we’ve all heard about so many times. You are right, about the worth of it.