WASHINGTON, July 2 - The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) proudly announces Wachovia as its 29th Annual Convention and Business Expo Alianza Partner. The convention, the largest gathering for Hispanic business owners in the nation, will take place this year in Sacramento, California from September 24-27, 2008.

The four-day event will include a Town-Hall Session featuring Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates, a variety of workshops, chamber trainings, and business sessions focused on issues most important to the 2.5 million Hispanic-owned businesses the USHCC represents. This year’s convention will continue to promote best practices on creating wealth, accessing procurement opportunities, and securing and sustaining long-term growth.

Sacramento, CA (June 9, 2008)— The Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (SHCC) is celebrating the Senate’s recent Budget Resolution that supports $101 million in additional funding for small business programs. Under the leadership of John Kerry (D-Mass) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), the resolution was signed last week and provides increased funding for Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers, microloans, contracting assistance, veteran’s outreach programs, technical assistance programs and increased loan oversight while reducing oversight fees paid by lenders.

“We couldn’t be happier with the Senate’s decision to finally increase funds for small businesses nationwide,” said Diana Borroel, President/CEO of the SHCC. “Many businesses in the Sacramento region are being affected by the slow economy and need even more access to training, capital and procurement opportunities that the SHCC helps to provide. With this new budget resolution, we’ll likely be able to expand our support even more for local entrepreneurs.”

The SHCC offers their members services such as a microloan program, the Sacramento Business Service Center, weekly workshops with procurement opportunities, women focused business education and trainings such as the SCORE program.

The budget blueprint increases funding for:

• Small Business Development Centers to $105 million
• SCORE Program to $7 million
• Microloan funding to $3.6 million and Microloan Technical

Assistance to $20 million. Last year, small businesses received more than $31 million in microloans, proportionally helping more women and minorities than other programs.

Since 1972, The Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has worked tirelessly to promote business, industry, commerce and culture within the Sacramento community for all minority groups. With nearly 700 members, the Chamber seeks to increase better understanding between Spanish-speaking businesses and the community through networking events, advocacy efforts and educational trainings. For more information on the SHCC, please visit www.sachcc.org

Environmental Defense Fund Supports Fishermen Catch Share Program to Revitalize West Coast Groundfish

(San Francisco – June 6, 2008) The Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) will meet next week in Foster City, California to consider adopting an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) system for groundfish that would help revitalize the fishing industry along the West Coast. Such catch share programs have worked successfully around the world, including in the U.S., to revitalize fisheries.

“The current management system produces winners and losers, but mostly losers,” said Johanna Thomas, director of fisheries projects for the Pacific Ocean program of the Environmental Defense Fund. “An IFQ program can raise all boats, making fishing more profitable for fishermen and processors while creating better incentives to conserve the fishery.” Thomas, who has more than twenty years experience working on conservation and fishery-related issues, held a telephone briefing for reporters Friday on the significance of next week’s decision. Also participating in the briefing were Shems Jud, EDF Fisheries Policy Coordinator and recreational fisherman and Dorothy Lowman, fisheries consultant with masters in marine fisheries management. Reporters can listen to a recorded version of the briefing here: https://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=0oiabffo

“The Council has an opportunity to incorporate management measures for harvesting Pacific groundfish that have worked well to recover fisheries in other regions,” said Thomas.

“We see this IFQ program as a win for fishermen, processors and our communities,” said Ralph Brown, a second generation West Coast fisherman from Brookings, Oregon. “Fishermen are struggling because there is no flexibility and no choice in the current management program. Without an IFQ program, our future is bleak.”

“The problem is not the fishermen. Fishermen have done everything that fishery managers have asked them to do. With fisheries continuing to fail, perhaps we’ve been asking fishermen to do the wrong things? Now is the time to reconsider the direction we’ve been taking with fishery management,” Thomas said.

Declared a disaster in 2000, the West Coast groundfish fishery is in trouble and so are the local communities that depend on it. Revenue from groundfish landings, widely sold in markets as snapper and sole, has declined by more than half during the last decade. Many Pacific groundfish fishermen are operating in the red. Plus, key groundfish species are now listed as overfished. The Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC), is charged with managing the fishery, and will vote on a new management plan June 12.

West Coast landings of rockfish or groundfish plunged by 70 percent during the last two decades, from an average of 74,000 tons in the 1980s to 22,214 tons in 2007. Revenues from the groundfish fell by more than half from 1997 to 2007, from $47.3 million to $22.2 million. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Commerce declared the fishery a disaster, due to major declines in nine of 82 species of groundfish. Today, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which governs West Coast fishing, lists seven species of rockfish as overfished.

Thomas said historically, fishery management councils have responded to crisis through measures such as shorter fishing seasons and smaller daily limits. Instead of reducing the catch as intended, such regulations set up a “race for fish.” The consequence has been dangerous fishing conditions, larger investments in boats and gear, a market glut and associated environmental damage.

Many fishermen are struggling to hold on, and if they determine that they are unable to continue fishing they must exit the business with just a boat and a permit as collateral for any outstanding debts they may owe. Under an IFQ program however, a fisherman will at least have his quota as a valuable asset to sell, which provides a far greater safeguard against true “losers” than exists in the current system. In addition, it is precisely that same transferability and flexibility that will allow new entrants to come into the business; a business under IFQs that will be worth investing in compared to the present situation.

Catch share programs are not new. In 1997, British Columbia launched a catch share program for their groundfish fleet. This program gave each boat a guaranteed “share” of the allowable rockfish catch for the year based on a combination of each vessel’s catch history and size. The guarantee allowed fishermen to fish at their own pace. Since they could fish when prices were best, they could make a higher profit on fewer fish.

In 1996, 29,000 tons of groundfish were landed in British Columbia with revenues worth $21 million. In 2000, 26,000 tons of groundfish – 10 percent less than in 1996 – yielded more than a 60 percent increase in revenue, $34 million. And the program required a scientific observer to be aboard the boat, which provided better data about the health of the fishery and served as a basis for better fishery management decisions.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council will consider a similar program on June 12 at the Foster City meeting.

“With the correct safeguards in place and tools for fishermen, Pacific groundfish can experience the same comeback as was experienced in British Columbia. Much depends on what opportunities and flexibility fishermen have to make the right choices about how much, and when, to fish,” said Brown. “Some industry groups, led by the dominant seafood processing companies such as Pacific Seafoods are spreading misinformation and unsupported statements to either undermine the adoption of an IFQ, or to ensure that they can continue to dominate fishermen and West Coast fishing.”

“A successful IFQ program recognizes that fishermen and processors need each other,” Thomas said.

For up to date information on Ocean issues, and specifically Catch Shares, visit our Web site at http://edf.org/CatchShares

To listen to this briefing click the following link: https://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=0oiabffo

For additional instructions on playback, click here: https://www.callinfo.com/help/ArchivePlaybackInfo.html

Note: Recording playback requires Flash. If you do not have Flash installed, you will be prompted to install it before playback begins.

  By Joe Garofoli,

Experts in Interactive Media say candidate never progressed beyond traditional uses

The rise and fall of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign can be told through video - from her first announcement to the suspension of her campaign, scheduled for Saturday. Some of the video was scripted fare, much of it wasn’t. Some of it aired on network TV, much of it spread virally online.

And all of it was viewed enough to dominate a news cycle - or in Clinton’s case, the campaign’s narrative.

What hurt Clinton most, political analysts say, is that she couldn’t consistently use the newfound ubiquity of video to soften her image with voters. Or, as George Washington University professor and new media analyst Michael Cornfeld said, “It’s like the Clintons, both of them, had sort of a ‘Sunset Boulevard’ thing going on. They were silent screen stars who couldn’t make the transition to talkies.”

Conquering video in the digital age has less to do with being telegenic or smart - as both Clintons are. Being a politician in the YouTube era means being comfortable with giving up control of your message, and realizing that everything you say or do can be uploaded within minutes for the whole world to see - and then mashed up into something new.

Video is the media currency of the millions of young Americans who voted in the primary seasons, many for the first time. Stories told through video percolated to traditional media from blogs and online advocacy sites, from the tirades of Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the off-campaign script comments from Bill Clinton.

Authenticity is more prized online than high production values, as the only thing worse than being caught in a gaffe is being perceived as over-scripted. For much of the first half of the campaign, analysts say Clinton was over-scripted.

“Hillary’s announcement video had really high production values, like it was a made-for-TV movie,” said Dan Manatt, executive producer of PoliticsTV.com, a political video site. So were her first Web chats, where she answered questions from voters. They may have looked good, but they weren’t the stuff that generates buzz for a campaign.

“The Web values authenticity,” Manatt said, “And these were seen as staged and scripted and inauthentic.”

One Obama supporter seized upon Hillary Clinton’s stilted quality and created the “Vote Different” online video, a mash-up of Apple’s famous 1984 Macintosh ad and Hillary’s early Web efforts. It portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure, and pointed viewers to Obama’s website.

An Obama supporter, Phil de Vellis, created it on a Sunday afternoon because he was frustrated with the way politicians were using online video. “They were treating it just like TV. They were broadcasting things online. You have to do more. You have to interact with your audiences.” Plus, he wanted to show how an individual - using new media tools - could change the course of the campaign.

“We’re starting to see in these campaigns where being seen as too scripted can be seen as a liability,” said Patrick Ruffini, a GOP online strategist and founder of the new The Next Right blog, “in that you can be lampooned for it.”

It’s not like Obama didn’t have his YouTube nightmares - the nation surely has not seen the last of his former pastor. But at the height of the Wright controversy, Obama delivered a long, nuanced speech about race in America. Within a week, nearly 4 million people had watched it. 

 By Rick Whiting,

You might say Google (NSDQ:GOOG)’s universe is expanding with a little help from NASA.

The fast-growing Internet search company will lease 42.2 acres of land at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. to construct up to 1.2 million square feet of office and research and development space. The property lies between Google’s headquarters and Moffet Field on the NASA property.

Google and NASA have collaborated on several projects since September 2005, including establishing the Planetary Content project that makes it easier for scientists to publish planetary data online. That project has provided high-resolution imagery and maps to the Google Moon Website.

The relationship also includes a controversial deal between NASA and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt to land a Boeing 767 and two smaller planes at Moffet Field, according to a Reuters news agency story.

Under terms of the 40-year lease Google will pay NASA an initial base rent of $3.66 million per year. Google can incrementally extend the lease up to a total of 90 years, the company said. Google has even provided a view of the property at http://maps.google.com/googleameslease.

“This long-term lease agreement is a key component of Google’s strategy for continue growth in Silicon Valley,” said David Radcliffe, Google vice president for real estate and workplace services, in a statement.

Construction of the new campus will take place in three phases with the first phase beginning by the end of September 2013, the second phase by 2018 and the third by 2022. Most of the development will be office and R&D space, although it will include conference, housing, dining, fitness, and child care facilities, as well as parking and infrastructure improvements for NASA’s use. NASA will actually retain control of the project during the construction phase.

SACRAMENTO, CA – In the first quarter of 2008 home foreclosures in the United States reached a peak and the pain was felt by all types of borrowers, not just those with the now infamous subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).

While subprime borrowers led the pack in allowing their homes to go to foreclosure many so-called prime and alt-a borrowers were unable to consecutively make payments on their houses as well. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (www.mbaa.org), .99 percent of home loans in America entered the foreclosure process in the January to March time frame. The number the previous year was .58 percent.

The trade association first began measuring loan delinquency rates in 1979, and this year’s results were the highest on record at 6.35 percent.

On a positive note, the Mortgage Banker’s Association senior researcher, Jay Brinkmann, predicted that most states should see a trailing off of foreclosure activity by years end. But, troubled states like California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada, which saw record prices spikes in residential real estate values, may see their foreclosure woes persist well into 2009.

For the homeowner who is trying to sell a house in the current market the challenge can be finding a qualified buyer who is pre-qualified for a mortgage loan. Many buyers have reported that they are simply not able to get funding for a house purchase despite having good credit and down payments available.

Real estate and foreclosure expert Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of Sacaramento, CA-based The Home Buying Center.com (www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com) said, “For people looking to buy a foreclosure house there are opportunities aplenty. It’s important for these buyers, though, to get pre-qualified for a home loan before they go shopping because sellers, especially lenders with a large inventory of bank owned REO houses don’t want to spend time with people who aren’t ready, willing and able to buy.”

 by Al Jazeera

Hillary Clinton’s decision to suspend her presidential campaign marks the end of a long, at times bitter, battle with her Democratic rivals, most notably Barack Obama.

The New York senator and former first lady had been her party’s early leading contender to clinch the presidential nomination.

She made US history by becoming the first woman to win a US presidential primary.

However, her campaign was marked by errors, including some comments that were swiftly pounced on by rivals, and the nomination, ultimately, slipped from her grasp.

From the outset of Clinton’s announcement in January last year that she was to enter the US presidential race, she faced a battle with many US voters’ perceptions of her and with perspective rivals.

Many argued that US voters would forever associate her with the scandals of her husband’s tenure in the White House.

But while detractors argued she used her husband’s name to gain political credibility, her supporters charged the hostility stemmed from sexism and emphasised her political experience, both in the US and on the international stage.

Political beginnings

Born Hillary Rodham in the Midwestern US state of Illinois in 1947 to a politically conservative family, Clinton was an excellent student and active in politics from an early age.

Initially a Republican who campaigned for presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and president of the Young Republicans group at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science, Clinton later switched to the Democratic party.

She trained as a lawyer at Yale University, working for child advocacy groups, supporting women’s rights and campaigning on behalf of several Democratic politicians, including Walter Mondale, the former Democratic presidential candidate.

It was at Yale that she met fellow law student Bill Clinton, whom she later married in 1975 in his home state of Arkansas.

She became first lady of the southern state following her husband’s successful bid for the state governorship in 1978, holding the position for more than 10 years. Her only child, daughter Chelsea, was born in 1980.

Following her husband’s leap to national politics and entry to the White House in 1992, Clinton was appointed by her husband as head of a task force aimed at an ambitious overhaul of America’s beleaguered healthcare system.

However, the task force’s recommendations were ultimately rejected by the US congress after Republicans and health professionals criticised the proposals.

In addition to the sting of public failure following the healthcare plan collapse, Clinton also faced a constant struggle against the traditionally perceived role of the first lady, once commenting acerbically that she did not just want to stay at home and “bake cookies” while her husband ran the country.

From scandal to senator

Successive scandals during her husband’s two terms in office, culminating in his unsuccessful impeachment for a liaison with intern Monica Lewinsky, also took their toll on her public image.

Clinton weathered the so-called Whitewater property scandal, but her husband’s liaison with Lewinsky proved harder to ignore.

Clinton later admitted in her autobiography, Living History, that the revelations of her husband’s infidelity wounded her deeply.

In 2000, after the Clintons left the White House, she successfully ran for the US senate for New York state, despite criticism that she had never previously resided in the state.

Foreign affairs

Clinton’s move to the centre of the Democratic party was seen by political analysts as a calculated move to appeal to as broad a base of voters as possible.

However, once on the campaign trail, several of her previous political decisions would come back to haunt her, most specifically, her decision in 2003 to vote in favour of the Iraq war, a vote she later distanced herself from but that proved highly damaging to her campaign.

Clinton was also heavily criticised for hawkish comments on Iran in which she said that, if made president, she would “totally obliterate” Iran should it ever attack Israel, a comment that Obama said smacked of “sabre rattling” and which many commentators said seemed closer to a Republican stance.

And there were further gaffes on the campaign trail - claims of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia which were swiftly disproved, leading to an embarrassing climbdown.

Ultimately, Obama, largely seen as untainted by any scandal or any vote for the Iraq war, garnered a momentum that Clinton simply could not overcome.

While some point to sexism, alleging the US remains unwilling to elect a woman to the highest office, others point to Democratic voters simply unwilling to hand the nomination to a Clinton and creating a political dynasty in one of the world’s largest democracies.

Either way, Clinton now faces a choice - whether to pitch in and aid the Obama campaign as it prepares to take on McCain, to concentrate on her senatorial career, or to look to other avenues.

Whichever route she chooses, it is extremely unlikely that the world has heard the last from Hillary Clinton.

SACRAMENTO, CA – The current housing crisis in the United States has resulted in greater difficulties for borrowers who want to borrow money from mortgage lender to buy a home. Gone are the days when homeowners could sell a home fast and buyers could easily get a mortgage loan .On Wednesday at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (see www.sifma.org) conference Jack Malvey of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. commented, “We’re going through a tough spell with regard to credit…The subprime debacle…will be followed by years of tight credit.”

Malvey blamed excesses in so-called structured finance and collateralized debt obligations, essentially securities created by pooling mortgages together to create bond-type investments, for the crisis. He predicted that the overall market would be healthier after two years or so, but for the country the wait could feel like a long time.

Residential real estate sellers and buyers are likely the ones to feel the brunt of the pain in addition to Wall Street’s financial firms, many of who have seen their stock prices slide during the past year.

One company that helps homeowners and homebuyers buy and sell homes, www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, reports that their counseling activities are way up. “We counsel home sellers and buyers about their realistic options in today’s market. We provide the option of selling a house quickly and directly to a nationwide network of investors, but many people don’t have enough equity left in their homes to qualify for an investor purchase. For these folks the counseling process explores their other options including short-sales and ways for them to talk to their lender about loan modifications,” said company president Patrick McGilvray.

The other main thing McGilvray said his company does is help people looking to buy a home find ways to buy a foreclosure home either from an investor or via a bank or other lender after the house has been foreclosed on. These houses are also known as REO homes, and for the pre-qualified buyer, they can represent a tremendous deal.

SACRAMENTO, CA – After 14 years at the helm of one of America’s premier teaching and research universities, the University of California, Davis, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef announced today that he is stepping down in 2009.

Vanderhoef announced plans to take a sabbatical leave for one year starting in June of 2009 and indicated he would return to his duties as a professor of plant biology in 2010.

Two of the milestones achieved during Vanderhoef’s stint at the helm of UC Davis included an expansion of the student body to 30,000 from 22,000 and an increase in faculty size by 44 percent. In addition to the student and teacher growth, over 4 million square feet of classrooms, laboratories, clinical settings, and performance and office space were added including the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

One of the lesser known yet noteworthy activities, especially in terms of current US-Iranian relations, undertaken during the Chancellor’s time in office was an official university delegation trip to Iran to establish academic and cultural ties with the University of Tehran. Deans of the colleges of agricultural sciences and engineering traveled to Iran with the Chancellor in 2004. The prominent Sacramento real estate developer Mohammed Moe Mohanna, a native of Iran, led this delegation which became the most significant U.S. delegation to Iran since the Revolution of 1979.

Mohanna, a well-known international civic leader, is very involved in numerous philanthropic activities and serves on the board of the UC Davis Foundation. When asked about his thoughts on the retirement of Vanderhoef he commented, “Larry is really a remarkable human being. He is a very courageous and visionary leader with global understanding. Larry promotes the internationalization of education and turns nations into people. He has been a champion of crossing boundaries and building bridges. To me, Larry personifies the great American values that we all cherish.”

Vanderhoef faced considerable pressure from others when he agreed to be a part of the delegation and wrote at the time of the trip, “perhaps in the process, one small step can be taken toward a return to normalcy in the Middle East.”

The current president of the University of California, Robert Dynes said of Vanderhoef, “all the other chancellors [of the UC system] and I look to him for wisdom and experience.” UC president-designate Mark Yudof said, “I have, from afar, watched the UC Davis campus go from relative obscurity to the front ranks among the nation’s research universities.”

All data point to escalating foreclosure numbers through the year

Foreclosures have flooded North County’s housing market, and indicators show that the waters will be rising, not receding through the rest of the year.

Just as April’s sales data was the best in months and provided some encouragement for real estate agents, the month’s huge foreclosure numbers offered more ammunition to housing market bears who see San Diego County’s housing recession dragging on for two or three years.

All indications are that North County will see more foreclosures, not fewer, come up for sale over the next six months:

– Fewer than half of San Diego County variable-rate subprime loans —- where interest rates jump after a set period and typically carry high payments because of a borrower’s poor credit score or low down payment —- have already seen payments escalate, according to a report by the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

– Of all North County foreclosed homes that went back to the bank within the last 120 days, 60 percent have not been listed on the market, according to a North County Times analysis of foreclosure, listing, sales and pending sales data. And there have been more finalized foreclosures —- 1,800 homes —- over the last four months than the previous seven months.

– Notices of default, the first step in the foreclosure process, have shot up in North County, reaching a peak for this recession of 1,100 in April, according to data from ForeclosureRadar, a California foreclosure tracking service. Notices of default preceed bank-owned foreclosures (widely viewed as the chief culprit of San Diego County’s home price decline) by six months to a year.

The data put foreclosure analysts at odds with real estate agents, who say that a flurry of buyer activity foretell a housing market recovery locally.

“I am more wondering when is this thing going to blow up, and you’re already talking about the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Ramsey Su, an investor and former real estate broker in San Diego. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Small-time investor could lose big

Many housing analysts said they think option-adjustable rate mortgages will further exacerbate the foreclosure problem. The loans allow homeowners to pay less than the interest accrued, meaning the amount owed on the mortgage increases, rather than decreases, with each payment.

Eventually, the mortgage balance becomes so large the lender forces the homeowner to pay all interest and some of the principal each month to start drawing down the balance.

For Diane Goodwin of Oceanside, that move would force her to lose two of her investment properties. And if the market does not improve, she said she could lose her other three homes, including her primary residence, over the next year and a half.

All five properties she owns carry the option mortgages, also known as negative amortization loans.

“Yup, big mistake,” she said. “However, we wouldn’t have any of them except the original house if we didn’t use neg-am, so it was a gamble. And at the time, it seemed like a good one. Obviously, we didn’t know what was going to happen to the market.”

There are 19,200 homes with neg-am, non-suprime loans in San Diego County, according to the Federal Reserve report. All of those loans are known as Alt-A, which indicates a more qualified buyer than subprime loans but less qualified than prime loans. In total, there are about 95,000 non-prime loans in the county, according to the data.

That prevalence has raised concerns among foreclosure analysts that neg-am loans will cause a new tidal wave of bank-owned foreclosures.

“I still haven’t seen a real wumph,” said Ward Hanigan, founder of Innovest, a San Diego-based company that tracks foreclosure statistics and buys bank-owned properties.

Hanigan said he thinks San Diego County’s housing market will decline for two more years before any sort of recovery and that an increase in foreclosures will lead the decline.

Based on that prediction, his company has not invested in foreclosures yet, he said.

A few unknowns will play a significant role over the next year.

For example, Goodwin is desperately trying to get her banks to freeze her mortgage payments to avoid foreclosure. But because she has not missed a payment, she said, they will not talk about such a freeze, known as a loan modification.

If more banks engage in loan modifications, more homeowners and investors like Goodwin might dodge foreclosure.

To help even more families facing foreclosure, the state and federal governments have moved aggressively to pass foreclosure-prevention legislation and have organized networks where homeowners can seek free help in securing loan modifications.

However, much of that legislation will not help Goodwin because she is an investor and politicians have repeatedly said they want to avoid bailing out speculators.

But Goodwin said she does not fit the speculator-investor prototype.

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t a burden to my family when I get old. It was not to be rich, but to have something so that my kids wouldn’t have to worry about me when I’m 90,” Goodwin said. “So now, instead of being able to retire when I’m 65 or 62-and-a-half, now, realistically, I’ll have to work until I’m 75.”

The negative intangibles

Some unknown factors could increase, instead of reduce, foreclosure numbers. For some housing analysts, the trajectory of the nation’s economy will play the biggest role in foreclosure numbers over the next year.

Housing analysts have said that the primary cause of foreclosures so far has been creative loan products, such as neg-am or subprime loans, that put people into homes they could not really afford.

In contrast, job loss, divorce and death have been the largest foreclosure factors historically. If significant layoffs come —- as some analysts, such as Su, expect —- foreclosure numbers will multiply as traditional home losses combine with evictions brought about by exotic financial instruments and a housing rush from 2000 to 2005.

“I don’t think it would be a linear growth of foreclosures. It would be exponential. It would be catastrophic,” said Su, the San Diego investor. “It would be a situation we have never seen before.”

Some real estate agents, such as Kurt Kinsey of Oceanside, disagree with analysts such as Hanigan. Though Kinsey said he acknowledges there will be more foreclosures through 2008, that does not necessarily mean they will depress home prices.

“It will definitely add pressure to non-distressed sellers, no doubt about it. But most of them (foreclosures) are coming back at price points that are affordable,” Kinsey said. “And from where they started at, they’re starting to come up in price. So if anything, they’re starting to heal some neighborhoods.”

Shadow inventory

Even if foreclosure numbers leveled off next month, it would take a long time to work through the homes already in the foreclosure process.

Notices of default, the first step of the foreclosure process sent out after homeowners start missing payments, are considered a leading indicator of foreclosures.

Hanigan said his statistics show about 50 percent of notices of default are turning into bank-owned foreclosures in San Diego County.

North County has seen notices of default escalate recently, accumulating 4,100 notices in the first four months of the year, according to ForeclosureRadar.

With Hanigan’s 50 percent conversion rate, the notices of default during the first four months of this year will translate into 525 foreclosures per month. During those four months, North County posted an average of 460 foreclosures over the same time period.

And even many of the homes that have completed the foreclosure process have yet to hit the market.

Of the 1,300 North County homes to be seized by banks over the last 120 days, 750 are still not on the market, according to an analysis of ForeclosureRadar data and listing, sales and pending data from Sandicor, a service real estate agents use to post homes for sale.

“I think that the banks are in an analysis paralysis,” said Norm Miller, a real estate professor with University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate. “They’re trying to figure out whether to put it on now and bite the bullet or wait because they think we’re at the bottom. But everyone else is thinking the same way and there’s no way to avoid the rash of foreclosures.”

Some housing analysts disagree with Miller, saying that banks are moving the foreclosures as quickly as possible, but that the process of evicting families and readying homes for sale is time-consuming.

Either way, there are plenty of homes to be sold not listed on the market, called by some as “shadow” or “phantom” inventory.

Many analysts look at inventory, the number of homes for sale divided by the number of sales, to determine the relative health of the housing market.

Some analysts, like Miller, think that current inventory numbers —- though high —- are artificially low because of foreclosure properties not on the market and regular homeowners who do not want to sell in a struggling market.

Still, some neighborhoods, especially those along the coast, have exhibited strength in pricing and few foreclosures.

Further, some areas, such as parts of Oceanside and Escondido, have been so wracked by foreclosures that prices have dipped to $160,000 and most analysts do not expect further declines.

“You look at 10 homes for sale, one is aggressively priced and another is priced at the same price as a year-and-a-half ago. … They’re going to be on the market for a long, long, long time,” Miller said. “So this home is close to bottoming out, and the other one is in la-la land with the assumption that real estate never goes down.”