Press Democrat on Alt-A and Option-ARMs

The Press Democrat published three articles on the mortgage crisis on the front-page of Sunday's paper authored by Michail Coit. Head over and give them all a read:

Ticking time bomb for borrowers in pay-option loans

Alt-A loans: Second wave of foreclosures ahead

and

Bank convinced SR borrower 'pay-option' loan was best

This line even surprised me:

Today, there are 18,000 Alt-A mortgages in Sonoma County. They account for about 18 percent of the county’s 102,000 home mortgages — triple the U.S. average, according to First American CoreLogic, a real estate research company.

This is an enormous amount of low doc loans and leaves little doubt that we're going to see more declines in Sonoma County real estate prices for years to come.