by Calculated Risk on 8/20/2007 01:29:00 AM

From the WSJ: Countrywide Begins Staff Layoffs

An auction of about 135 foreclosed homes in San Diego Saturday provided more sobering news for mortgage lenders. Ramsey Su, an investor and former real-estate broker who attended, calculated that the high bids for the homes averaged 67% of the prices they fetched when they were last sold, mostly in 2004 or 2005. At a similar auction in San Diego in May, the average was 73%.

Here is some more info directly from Ramsey:

Twenty nine properties that were in the May auction did not close escrow and were included in the August auction. These same properties sold for 87% of the May auction prices. The lenders took an extra 13% loss in just 3 months plus holding cost, that is assuming they will close this time.

Ramsey also added that the "average price of the auction list, at the last sale, was only $413,000". So the auctions are "not signaling any problem at the higher end of the market". At least not yet.