LA Times: How low will home prices go?
Posted by ecoshift on November 27, 2007
Homeowners’ big question: How low will prices go? – Los Angeles Times
By Peter Y. Hong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 27, 2007
For most of this decade, skyrocketing home values were a frequent topic whenever people gathered along soccer sidelines or at backyard barbecues. But the conversation has taken an about-face, noted Jeff Vendley, a Ventura mortgage broker who is trying to sell two Oxnard town houses he bought in 2004 and 2005.
Now, he said, people are wondering, “How low we can go?”
No one knows how severe the slump will be, but economists and real estate experts interviewed by The Times, and who were willing to make predictions, said prices could fall 15% to 25% before turning back up.
Most said values would continue falling through at least next year, and some thought the market wouldn’t reverse course until 2010.
That could translate to big declines for home buyers who bought at the peak of the market, which various measures place in late 2006 or early 2007.
