April 8, 2009, Stockton (California):

Stockton emerged as the No 1 once more on another ranking published on real estate news website developed by the cable TV company Home & Garden Television.

Stockton has achieved the top spot in terms of real estate bargains, on the basis of depreciation in values. The rankings offered by Frontdoor.com have been done on the basis of home value slumps every year as quarterly calculated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency along with the demographic conditions or features.

For instance, the interior cities in California – Merced, Stockton, Vallejo, Modesto, Bakersfield, Riverside, Fresno and Madera have been hit the most after the burst of the real estate housing bubble. In Stockton, home values nose-dived a massive 40.19% in 2008 and they were pulled down by a stream of foreclosures in the market.

Nevertheless, the closeness of Stockton to both the Sacramento region and the San Francisco Bay region offers it a cutting edge over the other troubled markets.

Obviously, one more means to consider this is that the majority of this ranking looks like a group of well-known areas which have been buffeted by real estate market meltdown and the consequent flow of foreclosures: Miami, Stockton, Phoenix, Las Vegas and so on.

The residential sales manager of PMZ Real Estate, Ben Balsbaugh, stated that he has not observed any rise in the number of outsiders who are searching for houses in the Stockton region as a result of price drops.

Balsbaugh further stated that he is not certain what to do if the number goes up. It seems that the supply for the first-time home buyers is not adequate now.