Larry St. John, owner of an insurance brokerage, bought a home for more than $900,000 early this year in a new development on the city's northwest side. This weekend, St. John said the builder - DeNova Homes - is planning an auction of more than a dozen similar homes, with starting bids about $300,000 less than what recent buyers paid.
"This is huge, this is our biggest investment," said St. John, 32, who has lived in Solano County his entire life. "I can understand a corporation taking losses to stay in business, but an individual taking a $300,000 hit is not something I have the capacity to do."
As a homeowner in the Bay Area, "every couple of years you have an opportunity to refinance and do some improvements and still have equity," St. John added. "That doesn't happen month to month, but every few years. If you're starting off from a position of negative $300,000, that takes more than a few years to rectify."
The perpetual refinance attitude is truly weird.