San Diego real estate blog - Peter Toner

The chart above had writers on Wall Street Journal’s website buzzing this week about whether or not it’s a sign our housing market has bottomed…. and will it now begin to slowly recover?

How you ask? Well… the chart above was created by one of the housing market’s leading experts, Professor Karl E. Case, who has studied in detail the ups and downs of the housing market during the last 50 years. As you can see from the chart, the areas highlighted as “recession” periods slumped to the one million mark and then somewhat magically began to recover after hitting it. The key here is to check out this year’s numbers in 2008… that’s right we’ve hit that “magical million mark” and it’s this data that has everyone waiting to see what the market will do now. Will our housing market seem to miraculously recover as it has in past years… or are we in for a longer slump then seen in the past 50 years? Only time will tell, we’ll just have to see if Professor Karl E. Case’s theory holds true!

To read the articles discussing the chart online at the Wall Street Journal, view the following links: Is the Housing Slump at a Bottom? and The Housing Crisis is Over?