Housing market expected to see slight gain in 2010
Ventura County Star
By Allison Bruce
...Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said he's 70 percent sure the housing market is at the bottom.
He's expecting the market will move along with relatively little change in sales and median price for a couple of years. There are three positives and three negatives that will influence the housing market next year, he said.
Inventory is down, prices are less than what it would cost to build a home and owning looks like a good deal relative to renting around the state, which should all drive sales, he said. But the unemployment outlook is terrible, rents are falling and there is a "shadow inventory" of foreclosures yet to hit the market that could affect prices and sales.
Green expects the positives to outweigh the negatives next year. But "I don't expect to see a boom any time soon," he said...