In answer to your question about which areas picked up first, it usually goes like this: last areas to drop will be the first areas to recover. Detached homes will rebound before condos. Areas close to employment will rebound before the outlying areas.
There is a possible exception to this that I can’t guess one way or the other, and that is the fate of the homes that are currently in the $1.5mil+ range. Wages weren’t the main factor driving these prices to begin with, and the avilability of credit when the markets to recover would have a huge impact on the ability of buyers to purchase.
