The Inland Empire real estate market is so discombobulated, traditional economic forces like supply and demand have all but gone with the proverbial foreclosure wind.

I happen to live in Corona, California, ground zero of the foreclosure epidemic in the Southern California region. Realty Trac’s new stats for the IE came out this week and it’s quite disturbing. But not surprising.

Riverside/San Bernardino, California, has one filing for every 43 households, more than three times its total a year ago.

It’s amazing as I take a look around my neighborhood. I drive down the street and notice for sale signs everywhere. Back in the day, you would see a for sale sign go up and within a week you would see a sold sign happily tacked at the top of the lawn post by a Realtor in a brand new Cadillac Escalade.

Now, the signs go up and stay there for months with no one even taking a peak at these homes. A few months go by and then you see the moving trucks come in as the tenant or homeowners frantically load up the trucks and take off into the smoggy sunset, never to be seen again. One day their kids are joyfully riding bikes in the drive way oblivious to the financial turmoil their parents are facing and then BAM, they’re gone. 

Not too long after, the lawn starts to turn an ugly shade of brown and then a months or so later  bright pink and red notices pop up all over the property. Bank owned they say!

Another month goes by, or so and then you see another not so happy Realtor, in a not so new car, looking like he has been drinking some cheap scotch, placing another for sale sign on the lawn. He doesn’t look as confident as last year. 

It’s a sign of the times, I tell ya.
 
Then the story repeats the cycle all over again.