Well, there goes the housing can only go down when there is a downturn in employment argument. I lived in Seattle for over a decade and I remember what these types of layoffs do to the local economy.

“This week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote to President Bush asking that funding for more C-17s be included in the federal budget. The governor wrote that the program “has a multibillion-dollar impact on the local economy”

yep

This is on top of the Nissan move this year. Nissan also pulled many high level marketing jobs out of the area, I know several people that are moving to Nashville because Nissan was their key account. Rumor has it that the other Asian car makers may follow suit for the same reasons Nissan left. If we are to experience a recession then IMO southern California will be ground zero of that recession. You have a rapidly contracting RE market combined with the loss of high paying Aerospace jobs plus companies like Nissan leaving the area. Those are just the headline companies, how many small businesses are leaving that you don’t hear about. Combine that with the fact that recruiters can no longer entice people to move to California…….talk about some disturbing under currents in this economy. Time will tell.