Southern California Home Prices Decline 8.2% as Employment Remains Weak

[yeahthatguy]

Originally Posted by user_id

No, instead, this is due to the increased urbanization of the bay area and Southern California. This is something that is naturally occurring, just as it naturally occurred in NYC, Boston, etc years ago.

You can still have a "traditional" middle class lifestyle in California, just not in the urbanized or urbanizing communities.

California is changing, don't like it? Move. Of course..you can just complain on city-data for a few more years instead...

Of course you will be the only person left still yapping about the value of California ...
http://www.treehugger.com/empty-office.jpg (broken link)

in due time ..
So refreshing to finally have made the decision to hit the road !

[user_id]

Originally Posted by Don9

Home are currently sitting vacant in record numbers and growing. This is a significant change in just three short years. Home prices will drop to affordability and start selling again. The shocker will be just how low they will go.

Yes, there are a lot of vacant homes, but the vast majority of them are in the inland communities. Home prices in these areas already largely crashed back to ~2000 prices and they will likely remain weak for years. On the other hand, the coastal communities in Southern California are in the process of urbanizing and this will put upward pressure on land values.

You, like some others, are expecting coastal communities to return to some past notion of affordability but that is unlikely to occur unless the coastal economies become very weak. The reason for those prices no longer exists, the coastal regions are now largely built-out and increased demand will be met with increased prices instead of more supply. This will be a slow process and prices will likely be weak for a few more years, but the game is changing those that don't respect this fact are going to be waiting for a long time....

The lifestyle that was possible 2 decades ago in coastal Southern California for middle-class folks won't be possible going forwards. I'm just not sure why people think of this as some sort of doom-gloom situation.... There are numerous places throughout the nation where you can buy a big house with a big yard on a middle-class income, expecting the same thing in every area of the country makes little sense.

This is a reality that east coasters have come to understand many years ago....