Victorville, anyone? ... Anyone? Bueller?

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Good morning, Charlie Weiss, you and the home-builders both need to get back on the good foot this weekend.

The LATimes’ Andrea Chang went nosing around at one of the bigger sales promotions, Standard Pacific’s ‘Mission: Possible’ extravaganza in Victorville: ‘Standard Pacific is aiming to sell 200 homes by offering mortgage loans with rates of less than 6% and other perks, including a free 42-inch plasma-screen television with every home purchase. ... But in Victorville on Friday, the blowout looked more like a washout. Only a trickle of potential buyers showed up on the first day of the 10-day event.’

Our take: Our gut tells us some of the national sales promotions will work better in other parts of the country. Southern California right now is a tough nut to crack: The zero-down, ARM buyer was very important to this market and is MIA at the moment. Given the ratio of prices to incomes, we still believe financing -- not price -- determines whether a Southern California home is ‘affordable.’

Your thoughts? Insights? Comments will be slow to post today -- our 3-year-old is taking us to clean up the beach.
Photo Credit: LATimes.com