IMHO, option-ARM loans schedule is one of the misguided index to predict bottom of the housing market. The most important reason is that people are “walking from their mortgage as I write this”. When these people finding themselves owning more to the bank than their houses are worth, they have stopped paying their mortgage even though they could (I think I read statistics somewhere that support this).
As for price, it will completely be determined by the magic hand. I think in some area, we already see demand meets the supply in the last two months. However, I do speculate that the demand will go lower as new mortgage regulation limits the amount of leverage people (many of them investors) can have to accumulate the houses, and the supply will go higher as the foreclosure pace heightens (although foreclosure rador does show that the foreclosure rate levels in the last 2 months, which will come to play toward the end of the year).
So in my particular case, I am expecting price to drop 20% (from the current level) in the area that I am interested in within a few months. Then I will jump. It may continue drop an extra 10-20% to reach the absolute bottom, but I can live with that. To answer SDrealtor’s question in my case, I currently live in 2-bedroom apartment but I will need to upgrade to a 3+ bedroom one sometime next year due to family reason. With my projected 20% future price drop and 20% down payment that I’d put down, buying sure looks much more attractive than renting.