Tracey Seslen, Professor at the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, is quoted in the May 2, 2009 edition of the Los Angeles Times:
House hunting? It's not a buyer's market everywhere
Los Angeles Times
By Chip Jacobs
...Real estate brokers and investors say would-be buyers misunderstand how the drop in housing prices has affected desirable neighborhoods. Just because an abandoned house in a troubled part of San Bernardino County might be going for $200,000, it doesn't mean you can get a nice place in Sherman Oaks for that amount - or even twice that amount.
House hunters are trying to pounce on deals from sellers they expected to be frantic - if not curled in the fetal position. What they're finding instead are bidding wars as low interest rates and pent-up demand in traditionally stable or chic areas have kept prices up - not as high as the market's peak, but not nearly as low as they had hoped...
...Banks are an even bigger X factor, and not just because of their stricter lending requirements and bailout havoc. USC real estate professor Tracey Seslen said she'd heard that lenders were carefully timing the release of homes they'd repossessed to avoid further flooding the market and driving prices down more. Those institutions also know that a fresh avalanche of foreclosures from people with resetting loans may be looming.
"So the banks are playing this game too," Seslen said. "They're keeping prices artificially high..."
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