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Nightly Business Report: "Reviving the Economy: Real Estate" -California's Residential Market

April 3, 2009

Dr. Richard Green, Director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, is interviewed April 3, 2009 on Nightly Business Report:

"Reviving the Economy: Real Estate" -California' Residential Market
Nightly Business Report

...SUZANNE PRATT: Tonight, we continue our special series "Reviving the Economy: Real Estate," with a look at California's residential market. Joining us is Richard Green, U.S.C. Professor and director of the school's Lusk Center for Real Estate. Richard, welcome to the program.

RICHARD GREEN, DIRECTOR, USC LUSK CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE: It's pleasure to be here...

...PRATT: So what is your outlook for California? When do you think it's likely to turn around?

GREEN: Well, I think one of the issues is how does the stimulus money flow? One thing that's going to be helpful to us is in the stimulus bill the conforming loan limit for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans was raised and in the housing rescue bill, people are going to be allowed to refinance those loans even if they don't have a lot of equity and that will allow people to get lower interest rates and put more money in their pockets. The other thing is, we need a lot of infrastructure out here in California. We have a lot more people than we have the infrastructure to support it so to the extent that the Federal stimulus package provides for infrastructure and allows people to go to work on those infrastructure projects, it will be helpful to our unemployment picture and once jobs come back, I think you'll start to see the housing market come back here pretty quickly...