Latesummer, haven’t seen you post much lately. I remember your call for the market to start bottoming in the late summer of ’08, hence your handle. Do you still feel that way? I live on the opposite side of LA county, near the eastern county line in Diamond Bar. Prices here have barely budged for the high end homes. The regular old tract boxes have declined about 10-20 percent, not nearly as much as I would have expected by now. Problem is, there’s hardly any inventory of homes for sale. For a city of about 60,000, you can drive for blocks and never see a for sale sign. Very puzzling. The neighborhood I live in is all custom, live security gated homes. I’ve lived here twenty years. I sold in late 2005 and have been renting a custom ever since. Prices have moved down 10 percent at most. Very frustrating, as renting always feels so temporary, just not the same as owning. If my returns were greater (money saved from not depreciating) I would feel better, but almost three years of renting has not saved me any money. The house I sold kept appreciating until mid 2007, and has come off about 10 percent from peak, like I said. Even at current values, it’s still worth about 400K more than when I sold it. It’s looking like late summer 2008 needs to be revised outward to maybe 2010 or 11. I check the LA Times every Sunday, and still can’t believe the outrageous prices for homes over in your area and in Pasadena. $1 million doesn’t go far these days. The only area that I’m seeing real price relief is in Temecula/Murrieta/Elsinore area. Prices at or near 100 ft. It’s still 300 ft. around here (for the “cheap” stuff).

Latesummer, haven’t seen you post much lately. I remember your call for the market to start bottoming in the late summer of ’08, hence your handle. Do you still feel that way? I live on the opposite side of LA county, near the eastern county line in Diamond Bar. Prices here have barely budged for the high end homes. The regular old tract boxes have declined about 10-20 percent, not nearly as much as I would have expected by now. Problem is, there’s hardly any inventory of homes for sale. For a city of about 60,000, you can drive for blocks and never see a for sale sign. Very puzzling. The neighborhood I live in is all custom, live security gated homes. I’ve lived here twenty years. I sold in late 2005 and have been renting a custom ever since. Prices have moved down 10 percent at most. Very frustrating, as renting always feels so temporary, just not the same as owning. If my returns were greater (money saved from not depreciating) I would feel better, but almost three years of renting has not saved me any money. The house I sold kept appreciating until mid 2007, and has come off about 10 percent from peak, like I said. Even at current values, it’s still worth about 400K more than when I sold it. It’s looking like late summer 2008 needs to be revised outward to maybe 2010 or 11. I check the LA Times every Sunday, and still can’t believe the outrageous prices for homes over in your area and in Pasadena. $1 million doesn’t go far these days. The only area that I’m seeing real price relief is in Temecula/Murrieta/Elsinore area. Prices at or near 100 ft. It’s still 300 ft. around here (for the “cheap” stuff).

PoorSaver,

I think the story on the Westside and premium pockets are the sales volumes. They are getting critically low. I live in the South Bay and we see a similar story with nicer properties not budging in price too much yet. But if you look at the number of transactions taking place it is eye popping. Communities in the South Bay total dollar transactions are off by 30% to 50% from last year which wasn’t that great. This is the same thing that happened to the low end starting in 2006. The volume dried up first, the few properties that were selling got close to full bubble price, now we are in the middle of a bloodletting clearing of inventory with the price per sq ft falling anywhere from 25% and in some cases 50% to 60%. The premium areas of S. Cal cannot sustain these prices at current sales volumes. You have a move up buyer that is snagged in the lower to mid tier, a weakening economy that is becoming more pronounced, a crippling credit crunch along with a second wave of option arm resets. In the face of these headwinds I am of the opinion that the Gubment bailouts are nothing more than the “Mouse that Roared”. Thee are very few PRO demand undercurrents right now other than a few really wealthy people with some cash on the sidelines (that alone will not drive the market).

Now I do think that LateSummer08 should change his handle to LaterSummer09. It is interesting that the areas where the bears have been wrong have not been on fundamentals but on the timing, that includes Poway Seller (no the S&P will not go to 600), AuctionHeaven07, LateSummer08, to the economist like Christopher Thornburg and Roubini. We are going into the worst part of this economic downturn and housing correction starting right about now of course IMHO.

PoorSaver,

I think the story on the Westside and premium pockets are the sales volumes. They are getting critically low. I live in the South Bay and we see a similar story with nicer properties not budging in price too much yet. But if you look at the number of transactions taking place it is eye popping. Communities in the South Bay total dollar transactions are off by 30% to 50% from last year which wasn’t that great. This is the same thing that happened to the low end starting in 2006. The volume dried up first, the few properties that were selling got close to full bubble price, now we are in the middle of a bloodletting clearing of inventory with the price per sq ft falling anywhere from 25% and in some cases 50% to 60%. The premium areas of S. Cal cannot sustain these prices at current sales volumes. You have a move up buyer that is snagged in the lower to mid tier, a weakening economy that is becoming more pronounced, a crippling credit crunch along with a second wave of option arm resets. In the face of these headwinds I am of the opinion that the Gubment bailouts are nothing more than the “Mouse that Roared”. Thee are very few PRO demand undercurrents right now other than a few really wealthy people with some cash on the sidelines (that alone will not drive the market).

Now I do think that LateSummer08 should change his handle to LaterSummer09. It is interesting that the areas where the bears have been wrong have not been on fundamentals but on the timing, that includes Poway Seller (no the S&P will not go to 600), AuctionHeaven07, LateSummer08, to the economist like Christopher Thornburg and Roubini. We are going into the worst part of this economic downturn and housing correction starting right about now of course IMHO.

PoorSaver,

I think the story on the Westside and premium pockets are the sales volumes. They are getting critically low. I live in the South Bay and we see a similar story with nicer properties not budging in price too much yet. But if you look at the number of transactions taking place it is eye popping. Communities in the South Bay total dollar transactions are off by 30% to 50% from last year which wasn’t that great. This is the same thing that happened to the low end starting in 2006. The volume dried up first, the few properties that were selling got close to full bubble price, now we are in the middle of a bloodletting clearing of inventory with the price per sq ft falling anywhere from 25% and in some cases 50% to 60%. The premium areas of S. Cal cannot sustain these prices at current sales volumes. You have a move up buyer that is snagged in the lower to mid tier, a weakening economy that is becoming more pronounced, a crippling credit crunch along with a second wave of option arm resets. In the face of these headwinds I am of the opinion that the Gubment bailouts are nothing more than the “Mouse that Roared”. Thee are very few PRO demand undercurrents right now other than a few really wealthy people with some cash on the sidelines (that alone will not drive the market).

Now I do think that LateSummer08 should change his handle to LaterSummer09. It is interesting that the areas where the bears have been wrong have not been on fundamentals but on the timing, that includes Poway Seller (no the S&P will not go to 600), AuctionHeaven07, LateSummer08, to the economist like Christopher Thornburg and Roubini. We are going into the worst part of this economic downturn and housing correction starting right about now of course IMHO.