CAR's 2007 Forecast

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Back in February, I wrote here about a California Association of Realtors' prediction that when all was said and done, the median price for California homes sold in 2006 would be $575,500. Such was their apparent confidence, I noted at the time, that they didn't even feel the need to round to the nearest $1,000. Yet the forecast turned out to be off by a bit more than that, as CAR's most recent projection for the 2006 median has fallen to $561,000.

Undaunted, the folks at CAR have broken out the crystal ball once again. A recent press release expresses a sentiment once perceived as heresy by the economic mainstream: that home prices actually can go down. A little, anyway. CAR projects that in 2007, the median California home price will decline by 2 percent to the nice, round figure of $550,000.

I expect some downward revisions to this forecast as well.

-- RICH TOSCANO