The Orange County Register reports:
Economist Chris Thornberg said Southern California home prices likely will continue falling until mid-to-late 2009. When the dust settles, he added, homes here could end up being worth half as much as they were at the peak of the housing boom.
“The reason prices are falling is because of gravity,” Thornberg (pictured here) told the Register after delivering the UCLA Extension Real Estate Forecast at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The run-up in home prices over the past decade was “ludicrous,” he said, noting that the increase wasn’t accompanied by a comparable increase in income.
In a market that’s seeing over 1,000 foreclosures per month this is not hard to imagine.
Back in the heyday of the bubble, the average flipper was living the O.C. dream and feeling like a hero.
“California here we come!”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scxGgZYC_4c&hl=en](Click for video)Source:
SoCal home woes could mean 50% price drop
Jeff Collins
Orange County Register
June 20, 2008