Whenever someone asks these questions, you have to ask yourself are you asking because you want to buy and want it to crash or are you a seller or owner and you want it to keep rising?
You can just scan the posts above and get the same read from the same posters as to where they stand since they have posted about the same thing before and their position is the same. This makes it so that the poster and most anyone is very biased as to what will happen when generally, most of the time, a lot of people are just flat out wrong. Also, the things you hear in the news are to sell news and sensationalize the situation when really, it’s all pretty boring so it’s not as bad as people state in the media. It’s all pretty stupid, but they are there to sell ads.
People have a tendency to also put too much in what they want and think that their position is the “correct” one.
Ask yourself where you are based on my comments above and be careful that you are actually wrong to think that way since you are simply choosing to see what you want to see or happen.
That said, a lot of people (mass media, business shows) have actually been predicting a housing crash so I don’t see that everyone thinks that it’s going to go up forever. People keep harping that interest rates will go crazy and inflation will be out of control and they have been wrong for the past 5 years already.
All that said, I agree with the general view of some posters that it will just move up slowly and that’s it. There is way too much cash on the sidelines (look at all time highs on stocks) for it to crash because if there is a drop, money will move in.
You also have to look at the most important thing such as rents. Rents are insanely high as been posted here and Rich (owner of this website) have stated very clearly with data that we are nowhere in bubble as in 2006-07…
I have posted also that buying at times maybe even cheaper than renting in the same area in the same house (20% down, tax benefits for higher income folks) so how can it go down or “crash” as some people want?
If you aren’t in dire straits, everyone in that situation (owners) will simply rent out their house instead of selling and I see a ton of these (not literally of course) in my area because their loan payments are so low.
Also, anyone who bought recently had very strong finances as the mortgage market was overly hard. Contrary to many other people perhaps, for many areas in San Diego and LA and the coast in general, I don’t think any “middle class” are really the buyers here anymore.
For 500-1 mil houses, the down payment (using how houses used to be bought), people would have to come up with 100k – 200k in cash. Most regular “middle-class” folks can’t get anywhere near that so the market these people support now are moveup buyers, foreigners (large chunk) and lots of highly educated, well paid folks. These people tend to have better jobs, better family support, and more savings so unlike when the bubble crashed with 0 down, ninja loans, these people won’t sell houses for less than they paid if they don’t have to, especially if they can rent it out.
Unlike 30-40 years ago (I was already in the states)…communities are not as diverse where the doctor is living next to the blue collar guy etc so certain areas will continue to slowly command a premium.
tl;dr:
Slow growth in desired areas mentioned (SD, LA, Coastal, Bay Area). No crash at all. Low inventory…all IMO.
