Comment that deserves a post...

This comment was posted by an anonymous reader this morning:



"Kate--what's your sense of when the market will bottom out? Like anonymous above, we are waiting things out, but friends (who mostly already own, please note) keep saying this is the trench. I doubt it, but wondered what your thoughts are as a savvy trend-watcher?"



Well, in my humble opinion, we are nowhere near the bottom. I think the big drop in listing prices that we are hearing so much about is all phantom losses . . . mainly a factor of the purely delusional listings falling off the MLS. This happened when the last boom busted too. Agents can't afford to market listings that they know aren't going to move and so they drop the crazy pie-in-the-sky listings. But the rest of the listings have stayed pretty firm (for Sherman Oaks: South of the Boulevard we're still seeing the low $1M on average; North of Ventura we're looking at three-quarters of a million, and North of the 101 we're looking at mid-600s.).



We still aren't seeing houses move. Sure, once in a while you'll see an excited agent-blogger chirping about how such-and-such listing flew off the market in just days! "Could the market be turning up?" she blathers. The answer is: "No." Because the truth is, those houses that are "flying" off the market aren't closing. They fall out of escrow because the would-be buyers are either not qualified or simply figure out that it's not a good deal.



And, until houses start to really move, we will keep sliding downhill. There *may* be a slight uptick this Spring (just like there is every year) but that will just mean that the fall will be more dramatic this holiday season. That's just simple statistics. When you have only a very small sample of housings reporting statistics, they will jump up and down a bit more wildly.



In short, there's no rush. You won't miss the bottom. It's not like on Wednesday we're bottoming out and by Thursday there'll be a 150% increase. When the time comes, you'll have months and months to decide on a home.



But don't take my word for it. Visit some of the other fine blogs out there. Notably: LA Land and Westside Bubble (both are linked at the right). You'll find a wealth of links on Westside Bubble in particular.



And don't be shy! If you'd like to offer your two cents the comments are wide open, Peeps. Go ahead and record your predictions for posterity and for Anon