JG: Boy, you take the admonition to bring data quite seriously, don’t you?
I would hasten to add my use of Temecula/Murrieta/Corona was illustrative only in the sense that they are near my home, and I agree that the rot is quite widespread through SoCal (and Central and Northern California, for that matter).
There is a bloodletting of fairly epic proportions going on in Sacto right now, and I have been following the Crisp Realty saga closely through the local news up there. Not for any newsworthy reasons mind you, solely for the prurient thrill and titillation factor inherent to watching David Crisp (he of the Gulfstream jet, Armani suits and Ferrari) brought low.
As far as the Middle West goes, my family hails from Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. They seem to be not only more down-to-earth there (in terms of not caring so much about appearances and pretension), but also more careful with a buck. As a kid, I was somewhat appalled at the almost medievel frugality of my Midwest German clan, but now realize the dynamics of what drove it.
A friend of my mine does quite a lot of work in parts south, and travels to Miami frequently as a result. The housing market, and especially condos, is getting savaged down there. Not only that, but many of the highly touted new condo developments on Biscayne have shuttered operations without ever breaking ground.
Maybe us spendthrift coastal types just figure we are smarter and know something our more mundane, and more parsimonious, midwestern brethren don’t.
