Bugs and Perry, thank you for sharing. I was a college graduate in my early 20s when I moved to the USA (and Calif.) in 1989. In the next few years I met a couple of people who told me how they had made money during the late 80s boom. It was essentially buy (preferably new construction), have the landscaping done, then sell at a profit and use the proceeds to buy an even bigger house. The formula worked well, up to a point of course, when they run out of GFs.
I suspect this time, price drops will be more severe in Midwest areas where job losses are severe. Next, price drops will be relatively fast in certain neighborhoods (in bubbly states) where lots of investors and lots of marginally creditworthy buyers purchased a lot of properties.
For instance, now I’m renting a house in an upscale neighborhood in Westlake Village (on the 101 fwy, right on the Ventura-L.A. county line). Most of my neighbors are owners who purchased brand new back in the late 70s/early 80s, most are retired, and they are not at all concerned with what happens to their property values (they’ve been through many ups and downs over the years, and probably carry very small, if any, mortgages).
It’s areas more like Riverside or San Bernardino, where I expect faster price drops, due to the larger number of marginal borrowers and investors.
