Four Expert Opinions on Foreclosures in California
Real Estate Pro Articles
By Dywon Erick Dylon
Homeownership as well as buying and salling of homes are an important ingredient of California's sense of economic well-being. But the speed of recovery in the state's housing market has tottered with falling sales and declining prices despite low interest rates.
Foreclosures in California are at high rates. There is a historic low of new homes sales. The construction sector is faltering. Millions of homeowners are underwater; they owe more than the worth of their homes. $1.73 trillion has been lost by Californians as prices peaked in 2007. Though free fall of California's housing market came to an end in spring 2009, the steadiness of the recovery is in doubt after a tax credit program ended.
Four experts on California expressed a range of opinions from pessimism to cautious optimism.
According to Richard Green, director of Lusk Centre for Real Estate, home prices in 2011 will stay flat. He says unless there is hyper inflation, prices will never touch the peak. He pointed out that Central Valley markets were much bubblier than Coastal markets, where the people with money were limited. But in Silicon Valley and West Los Angeles, there are many high income people who can easily spend $1 million on a home. He said that the more a property can be substituted for something else, the less is the chance of it coming back to its peak...