Victorville and Surrounding Areas Take The Bronze For Biggest Drop In U.S. Real Estate Prices

Dispatch / November 14, 2009

By Yasha Levine

housing crash

Here’s yet another depressing area in which Victorville excels: According to the latest Housing Hall of Misery stats released by the National Association of Realtors, the greater San Bernardino metropolitan area came in 3rd place in the race to the bottom of the biggest collapse in last quarter’s home prices. And while it’s not #1, the area did manage to edge out some pretty fast-crashing competition from the likes of Phoenix, Reno, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.

Here’s what the winners rostrum looked like:

3rd place: Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, for a 26.0% drop

2nd place: Las Vegas-Paradise, NV, for a 34.5% drop

1st place: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL, won the gold medal for a stunning 40.0% drop

This might come as bad news for local homeowners still clinging to their worthless subprime dream homes, but for Victorville as a whole, it is truly a proud moment, and marks yet another addition to the city’s trophy display case. This latest award would stand somewhere between Victorville’s “second-fastest growing city in 2007” trophy and the plaque of distinction it received for having three times the state average for fatal car accidents and DUI manslaughters. Just look at these stats:

Yes. It is a brutal hit-or-be-hit world out here in the High Desert, as this hapless motorcyclist found out:

Two hit-and-run drivers strike motorcyclist
Rider dragged 100 feet
A motorist struck and then dragged a motorcyclist before the rider was struck again and the two hit-and-run drivers fled, officials said Monday.
The woman was riding her Honda 50 motorcycle in the area of Fifth Avenue and Olive Street Friday night when a dark blue or black SUV hit her head-on and dragged her about 100 feet, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Hesperia station officials said.
The woman was left on the side of the road where she was once again struck by a white older-model Ford F-Series pick-up truck with a camper shell, officials said.
Both vehicles were seen driving west on Olive Street. Neither stopped.

This kinda stuff happens every day. It truly is hard to imagine that people will ever get bored of ramming each other with their SUVs and trucks, it’s a classic form of recreation around these parts, like drinking Buds and smoking meth. But the housing crash does seem to be bringing a new type of vehicular sporting event to the area: subprime demolition derby.

Couple fights, crashes cars into own home
August 19, 2009 5:25 PM
BEATRIZ E. VALENZUELA Staff Writer
VICTORVILLE • A couple apparently used their cars as battering rams, officials said, slamming into the front of their own home during a domestic dispute Wednesday afternoon.

The man and woman were both taken into custody for assault with a deadly weapon, according to Deputy Justin Snyder with the San Bernardino County Sheriff Department’s Victorville station.

Neither party was injured, though damage to the home was substantial.

The incident took place shortly after 4 p.m. in the 14500 block of Ponderosa Ranch Road.

A passerby who saw the accident called 911. When deputies arrived on the scene, officials said the woman was still in her Ford Expedition while her boyfriend was inside the damaged home on the phone as his Silverado sat outside.

The good news is that the year’s not done. There’s still plenty of time to win more rank competitions, and the smart money is on Victorville.

22 Comments

Add your own

1. phil_collins | November 15th, 2009 at 12:55 am
That sucks you have to live there.
2. Nestor | November 15th, 2009 at 4:53 am
He doesn’t, he chose to.
3. Johari | November 15th, 2009 at 7:27 am
“Rider dragged 100 feet”
Did she live? It doesn’t say.
4. Tommy Jefferson | November 15th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Do not worry. Our central planners will re-inflate the housing market with trillions of new dollars.
No FDIC bank executive, FHA debtor, or city commissioner will ever go hungry again so long as we maintain our faith in socialism.
We will win the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the War on Terror if we just keep faith that our democratically-elected masters know what is best for us.
Do not lose faith comrades!
5. Mark | November 15th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Dolan was right: We’re fascinated by people who don’t care how their actions could limit their career options…
6. adolphhitler | November 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am
no way…yasha loves it!
7. Steve | November 16th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Yasha chose to live in the middle of it all and I respect him for it. I live in Colorado, supposedly an economically healthier place, but the only way to miss all this is work really hard at averting your eyes. there are several abandoned houses near me, neighbors without jobs for over a year and facing losing their houses.
This is great reporting on the bottom and how it isn’t that far away for most of us. I wish we could get some reporting on the inside of out Supreme Overlords in places like Goldman Sux. I’d pay some of my dwindling savings for that.
8. Necronomic Justice | November 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
“This is great reporting on the bottom and how it isn’t that far away for most of us.”
If Yasha wants to see the bottom, he should take his bike for a ride down Riverside drive in Barstow.
9. Necronomic Justice | November 16th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
And there is a whole homeless society that has developed on the banks of the Mojave River between Victorville and Apple Valley.
10. Omri | November 16th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yasha, what’s your contingency plan for bugging the fuck out of there?
11. adolphhitler | November 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
@10…he’s not leaving, he’s one of us now…”four legs good, two legs better”
12. adolphhitler | November 16th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
@9…yasha, i think there may be a story here. these modern day hobo towns are popping up everywhere and the press goes to great lengths to hide them. there was an official one next to the ontario air port where the city provided police security and allowed the people to stay untill the press got hold of it. within hours the police rousted them…now i hear they have landed “near the airport” but the city doesn’t acknowlege them….i wonder how many of the homeless along the mojave river were formally living in your neighborhood? hell, if you go out there you may get laid, especially if you bring them home for a shower and hot meal…we can’t wait to hear about it!
13. Necronomic Justice | November 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
@11 it’s the Animal In Man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMQkPzc0Fs
@12 My compañero Rockero was involved with work at the camp in Ontario.
14. yabadabadoo | November 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Unlike that shithole called Moscow there is no government to count on to kick him out of that shithole Victorville. It is so much more depressing in this sense. With all that freedom of speech he can talk up shit until he rots to death. Nobody would care. He should find a way back to Russia somehow. Where is Rudinski these days? Can they get to China and cross back to Siberia together and start reporting from Kemerovo or Chelyabins again? Bring back Whore Stories section?
All the good things we had and we did not know until we lost them.
15. adolphhitler | November 16th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
@13…i go to barstow often but am not familiar with riverside drive…whats out there?
16. Necronomic Justice | November 17th, 2009 at 8:33 am
@15 When I worked out in Barstow in the mid 90’s it was the black ghetto there at the time,
a strip of a few streets on the “wrong side of the tracks.” houses that look almost like shacks. Every thing on google street view seems to be early morning sun drenched and hard to see, but here is a for sale listing:
http://www.sawbuck.com/property/Inland_Empire/92311/Barstow/1573506-1485-Riverside-Drive
It’s also close by a fairly neat railroad museum, that would probably cool to check out if one were into railroading.
17. internal exile | November 17th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Yasha, I don’t wanna jinx it or nothin’, but you are rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers. Keep it comin’, brah. Real reporting from the real economic front lines. Goldman Sux indeed, @7.
18. adolphhitler | November 19th, 2009 at 8:56 am
@16…i checked out that listing..isn’t that yashas house?
19. Necronomic Justice | November 19th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
@18 If it is not now, It will probably be soon enough.
20. cecina | February 24th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
You really shouldn’t complain about the area you live in. What is going on in Victorville is going on worldwide. Homeless persons once had homes and most just give up on life. People in New York complain. People in small town USA complain, people in other countries complain. Just be happy where you are and enjoy it. There are so many people out there that would love a day in your town. Some people live in countries where they fear talk or read a certain book. Developing homes is a business, but there was a demand at one point. Like every other recession, this will pass in time. Things will get better. If you got a job, help another person.
21. bulfinch | September 26th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
If one thing can be said of Victorville, it’s that it provided a real wellspring for material for Mr Levine. His tales from Victorville stand as some of the most entertaining dark comedy on here in recent years. Just the idea of a black clad, well-caffeinated, Magnum packing eXiled journo hunkered down in some anonymous McMansion out in the high violence/high desert hinterlands is interesting enough, and the dispatches themselves were always compelling — I think there was a book in there somewhere.
This should have been an ongoing series involving other cities decimated by the housing bubble fallout. Yasha in Orlando Fl or…?
22. bulfinch | September 26th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Achk! My Freudian slip is showing; I meant eXiled journalist, not journo…fuck.