[quote author="24inIrvine" date=1214446356]and for 2007 they predicted a whole 6% drop. I think that was the biggest drop predicted. I believe Fullerton only predicted 2% drops. Either way, both were off.</blockquote>
Actually, I was at the forecast, and they showed a chart of their predictions vs. actual. Which hopefully I can get my hands on. Maybe Miss Moneypenney can pull through for graphrix007 on this one. You might be shocked at how close they have been. BTW, those that always like to criticize them for missing the run up, they have also underestimated the down turn. Hopefully they are right this time, otherwise it will be a lot worse. Doh!
<blockquote>I read the 2008 one yesterday. Only thing that confused me was where it says "Orange County Median single-family resale housing prices is forecasted to decline to 524,500 by third quarter of 2009." I know it was month to month (and not quarterly) and May 2008 was below 500k. So how can they decline to 524k if we are already below it? If so, why didn't Chapman adjust this?</blockquote>
You are probably confusing DataQuick's numbers, and what Chapman uses, the CAR numbers for SFRs. So they don't need to adjust, and it would be on an annual basis for their predictions. Kinda like how they predict that this year will be down 16.1%, when it is already down over 20% according to CAR.
<blockquote>Also some funny things that jumped out at me from the 2008 update:
Ratio of home prices to median family income increased from 4.0 to as high as 9.4 in OC by late 2005.</blockquote>
Yup, and all the bulls would sh*t on them for saying that they are nuts and prices won't drop. Crazy huh?
<blockquote>And with current estimated family income of 80,100 in Q1 2008. This still means families need 38.4% of their income to pay for a median priced SFR. Current underwriting and lending would reject it now if it was 38.4% right?</blockquote>
Yup, and that is why they stated prices will come down to what will make sense with rational lending.
I will have more about the forecast later, once I get over this bug I have, and highlight some other great parts. Like the guy who saw the decline charts for OC and said OMG!. Also, I could have sworn the dude who worked for the city of Costa Mesa was talking about IHB.