The most obvious sign of bubble mania for me was stopping in at a new tract in Moreno Valley in Early 2007 and seeing prices of $700k. These were nice big homes on 1/2 acre lots but they were still in MORENO VALLEY. And get this, $700k got you VINYL flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms. You needed to drop another $50k to $100k to make these houses nice. So here we are 4 years later and they are selling for 65% off.
28615 Dracaea This was the smallest home in the tract at 3500 s/f. Some poor schmuck paid $717K for this house. He must have put a few upgrades in because the small model was "only" selling for around $670K when I looked. Well HAMP and HARP and HOPE and whatever else failed to keep this one from going "back to bene". Even at $253,800 they could not find a taker on the courthouse steps. Now it's listed for $249k. That's 65% off of the ridiculously overpriced original sale. Now at $249k this is probably a pretty decent deal if you don't mind living in MoVal.
By the way, they stopped building these for about 2 years and then threw up the final few homes last year. They still managed to find buyers willing to pay over $400k for that new house smell. They were easily upside down $100k the minute they signed the papers...... A sucker born every minute......