Here's a good interview with economist Chris Thornberg.
Take a listen to economist Chris Thornberg as he is interviewed on the housing market. Here's a few gems,
Prices in California have basically come down halfway to where they're going to end up.
In general, we would have to see about a 40-45% decline in home prices in CA just to get us back to normal levels relative to income.
If you want to sell and you need to sell, you're going to have to price it realistically.
We hear this all the time - people can't get loans, that's not actually the circumstance. If you do qualify, that is, you have the cash to put down, and your income is in line with what you're trying to borrow, and guess what, you can verify the income, you can still get a loan.
The problem is here in CA even with the drop we've seen in home prices, prices are still high relative to incomes. If you can't qualify today, it's probably good for you.
Housing markets don't bounce, they splat. They hit bottom and they stay there. You'll have a long opportunity to capitalize on those low prices once we find that bottom."
Whe asked what will it take to unfreeze this market.
It's not frozen. Quite the contrary, it's moving very rapidly, just not in the direction we like to think about. Prices will fall to the point that will eventually draw buyers back in. And then things get moving.
It's not the news people want to hear. It's certainly not the news real estate agents want to hear, because you can make a lot more money on a 500k house than a 200k house. But if the house is only worth 200k, all the wishing in the world doesn't make home prices go up again. But guess what - the value was never there in the first place.