If you check with the Chamber of Commerce, we have a housing shortage; we’ve underbuilt by 1 million homes in the last 10 years in California. According to Sherm Harmer of Urban Housing Partners, “Many media sources and feature writers would like the public to believe a huge real estate bubble is forming and that the sky is falling in the residential real estate market. Headlines and stories have been reported that sales are down and prices are falling. It is amazing how sales have slowed in direct proportion to the amount of negative press that has been generated.” He goes on to say that the bubble is a fiction in the mind of the media. Then, get this: “…this year, San Diego County will create close to 20,000 new jobs, generating demand for more than 14,000 homes. Based on current projections, the county will issue fewer than 9,000 permits – another year of underbuilding>”

Ok, let me get this straight: we’ve been losing population of 15K, 25K, and 43K people in each of the last 3 years, and population actually declined last year by .2%, but he thinks we have a housing shortage? We have a shortage of affordable housing, not a housing shortage.

jg, did you read in the CNN story, a quote from one of the NAR spinmeisters that inventory is leveling off? They forgot to say that inventory always falls in the winter, and so do sales.