The U-T Makes It Official: Prices Are Falling

The Union-Tribune reports that, as predicted here last week, year-over-year medians have gone negative. As of June 2006, the median price of a San Diego home was down 1% from a year prior. The median was down 6% since its peak last November, representing a loss of $30,000 on the median priced home.

Get ready for all the pundits to claim victory on their "soft landing" forecasts. Prices are down 1%, and that’s a soft landing—get it? Of course, this interpretation requires you to pretend that prices have fallen as much as they are going to, despite the lack of any evidence to that effect.