Still a long way to go down

It would be a miracle to see only a ten percent decline in Southern California real estate prices after rising by hundreds of percent over a period of about ten years - that's where things stand right now according to the most recent report by DataQuick.
Last year at this time, the median price for a home in the Southland was $485,000 and now it's $435,000. That still sounds like a lot of money - especially if you have to come up with a five or ten percent downpayment, borrow the rest, and then pay that money back with interest out of your income.

Have you seen what the median Southern California home looks like?

It hardly seems worth the effort these days as you can no longer plan on the value going up. How likely is it that these curves are going to pop back up over the zero axis anytime soon?
Marshall "almost all if not all of those gains are here to stay" Prentice, President of DataQuick, had these comments:

Some might point to the October-to-November increase as evidence sales have bottomed out, but we’ll need to see a sustained trend. We also saw November sales rise a bit back in the troubled market of 1994, well before it hit bottom. It’s worth noting, though, that sales financed with conforming loans have increased each month since September, and last month we saw signs that the jumbo loan problem, while unresolved, wasn’t worsening.

Yes, it's worth noting, but that's about all - there's still a long way to go down.

And don't forget that sales volume will bottom long before prices do - don't let anyone fool you into thinking that because sales finally make a bottom, probably sometime next year, that prices will begin rising again.